The Bag's Contents

A tarnished US dollar coin inside the belt buckle. A green twenty-dollar piece embedded in a knife handle. A mustard seed inside a locket. I want you to wear this whenever you take an exam. This was the cross your grandmother wore when she passed through Ellis Island, and if it weren’t for her cross she would have been sent back. Then why doesn’t it look like the crosses the Protestants and Catholics wear? Because they are not Eastern Orthodox. Christians, yes—but they are not Orthodox. A mite coin still inside its tri-fold. A whole banker’s bag full of old wheat pennies. A pocket watch with the panda coin still there. Mother, why must I take tests in the separate room? Why must I take more time and in a separate room? Because it’s harder for you to read. The letters go blurry and then they fall of the page completely. The doctors say you have dyslexia. A French gold coin so weathered you have to squint to see it’s an angel on the front. An ingot of one gram of gold with the writing gone, even when you squint. A bracelet of I-Ching coins slightly rusty but still you can see the engraving. Mother, when is Father coming home? Why hasn’t father come home in twelve days? Your Father is never going to come home. The farmers in the next town over found him lying in the stream. The doctors found out he got hit too many times to ever wake up again. And an eastern Orthodox cross wrapped in a cotton cloth and with its diamond and gold chain still intact.

The Handmaid’s Tale in withered hardcover. Toni Morrison in coffee-stained paper. George Orwell with the cover slightly faded. We do not eat pork. Good Muslim women like you and I do not eat pork. But why not, Mama? It’s a dirty animal. Good for only making people like you sick enough to die. Virginia Woolf with the pages curled and yellow. All of Ayn Rand in a single hardbound. A Passage to India and Ragtime and To Kill a Mockingbird all stuck together by too much time in a puddle. Mama, why do you and I wear scarves around our heads, when we’re the only ones in town who do? We’ve been commanded to by Allah. Allah doesn’t want some reeking back-alley madman ripping you away from your friends and family forever. Steinbeck and Hemingway and Nabokov in soft cover mistaken for desks. Rushdie and Huxley with a Monet imitation doodled on the cover. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner with the letters faded enough to make anybody a dyslexic. Mama, why does Papa rarely come home for Friday prayer? Why does he have to get up and march so far away? Because your Papa is a good Muslim. Good Muslims help other people—any other people—get a better life. So that people like you can learn to be a good American. And a copy of the Holy Qur’an, with the gold letters on the cover still there and the letters in English and Arabic still intact and even the binding utterly untouched by any liquid.

A notebook filled with microfiction. A journal full of hand-written plays. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow copied onto paper. It is good for you to write so much. Writing keeps you from getting in trouble with the other people. But what if I just stopped writing? What if I decided to give up writing altogether? Then you’d be better off in jail. I’ve seen you hit the people at the grocery store and in the hallways and even during church before. All the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. Tea-stained versions of the Tain and the Mabinogion. A book of Asian and African stories. Mom, why am I the one who has to always destroy things? Why am I the one who always has to break people’s arms and legs and ribs whenever I get angry? Why am I the one who always has to hear an echo and feel my arm seize and have my head explode just before I do? Because you have intermittent explosive disorder. You don’t have a moment for months at a time, and then it comes more suddenly than a meteorite landing on you. A coffee table book full of fairy paintings. A pocket-sized book of nature photos. A coloring book full of completed mandalas. Mom, why doesn’t Dad ever eat? Why does he walk around with a gun and then shoot in the air whenever even you or I go near him? Why does he stay up for the entire week and then collapse and sleep for another whole one? Because all he cares about is his speed. He stole your identity and stole from Grandma and claimed a disability. All while on probation. And a couple bound books of hand-written poems.