Ismene in transit, Doha
1.
I step on the moving walkway. I am taken
by that dark river, past an army of shades
standing on the wrong bank with brooms, with mops,
with plastic bin liners. The women
are not veiled, the men don't stop
to look at the golden boys kicking
footballs on giant screens. But they are not
shades: each one I pass is a person,
held here by decree, by a boulder placed
across the mouth. If I walk through a temple
built by slaves, (sending a pittance home
to countries too poor for anyone
to bother waging war over), if I walk
through that temple — even if I see the truth
and look those people right in the eye — if I walk
through that temple, then, who am I? I am
moving through this terminal, not
walking. I am conveyed: a western purse
packed inside expensive luggage, fooled
into believing my own volition —
I could be falling down a well. I breathe
and I remember all that I see, a small stone
falling down the deepest well. No solid ground
to stand upon. Stepping off, I feel my feet swell.
2.
These men are pristine in white, showcased
like fussy and urgent brides. They sucked
the oxygen out of the lounge. Oh, I was sure
I wouldn't banish myself to the family room,
wouldn't bend to the euphemism, but here
I am. Alone, I can breathe in this shabby
small room, nothing like the palace of servants
and alcohol and sweet delights just outside,
the blinds and curtains drawn tight. I lost
my nerve — tonight there were no phlegmatic
businessmen. I need only a sprinkling,
British and Australian passports are best:
lumbering, loud, immune to the spell, drinking beer
and goading each other about the rugby score
though they have never met before and may
never meet again. They cut the tension,
give me cover. The British man, last time,
aware of the service he provided
while he cheered on his beloved Pakistani
cricket team (exiled here, in frank and dusty luxury),
he nodded over the screen of his laptop, and then,
had no further interest in me, which is just
what I want. The glory of civic space —
impossible to recall the taste when it's gone.
3.
As if ripped out of my own chest,
a bird shoots up from behind the sofa, up
to the filthy skylight where a red streak
of dawn anchors the desert sky. It hurls
itself against the glass, hard, then falls,
spinning and cartwheeling like a shot down
plane. Twitches on the family room carpet,
one wing bent at an angle that must be wrong.
I begin to cry out but hold that cry, there can be
no official attention, the bird will not
survive it. How long has it been trapped
in this crypt, willing itself against the glass?
A common pigeon, no curse of royal blood,
no one cares if it lives or dies, this bird
that will do anything to survive. Small stone,
the deepest well. No one will compose
songs for the people who built this airport,
whose bones were broken when the bricks were laid,
no chorus will speak their name. No one
remembers my sister, either, they only
remember her name. But I remember —
her hands, her mouth, her breath on my shoulder
in our childhood bed. Should I leave water
for this pigeon, or wring its bony neck?
Note on 'Ismene in Transit, Doha':
Ismene is Antigone's pragmatic sister in Sophocles' play. She tries to convince Antigone not to martyr herself over burial rites for their (already) dead brother. Seamus Heaney translates the thrust of her argument as: 'Life is for the living.'
The 2022 FIFA World Cup will be held in Qatar. It has been estimated that more than a thousand migrant workers have been killed building the stadiums for this event, working in appalling conditions. Migrant workers make up 90 per cent of Qatar's population.
Cousins
They are here when I get home from the school run.
My face wet with a storm I couldn't
see coming, I'm holding the steering wheel
like it can help me. On the front grass, under
the trees, their raucous want and call carries down
the years, thousands of years. Forty white cockatoos
in my front garden, cousins of dragons.
Up close, each one as large as a circus toddler
teetering on a tricycle, under the whip.
But they are not caged, no one keeps them.
Stripping my trees of all their seeds, all
there is to eat. When they call they fill
the air with dinosaur, vocalise conquest, feast.
I get out of the car and they barely register
me, a high-vis crest raised like an eyebrow,
then a turned back. I look at their beaks
and feel my fingers crushed inside;
their cold lizard eyes and their wild, wild hearts.