And She Who Poem by Mishka Mojabber Mourani

And she who waits in vain for the return of an emigrant son
And she who goes abroad taking her city with her;
And she who lays her head on the steering wheel caught in the tentacles of a Beirut
traffic jam;
And she who looks at her watch yet again and waits for the result of her pelvic
exam;
And she whose stethoscope examines an anxious old man;
And she who is told that her child inherits her blood but not her nationality;
And she who plays soccer with her older brother and lets him win;
And she who counts wedding anniversaries that didn't happen;
And she who left her two-year-old son in the care of her sister in a Philippine
village;
And she who waits for the school bus, her book bag as heavy as her teenage
heart;
And she who, surprised, discovers her mother
And she who, surprised, discovers she has become her mother;
And she who sips sweet lemonade fragrant with orange blossoms by the sea;
And she who jogs mercilessly impervious to the sumptuous Mediterranean;
And she who delves into the palm of her hand to look for her errant destiny;
And she who is surprised that her lover of twenty years ago can still hurt her;
And she who applies a mask to her face to erase the wrinkles of her soul;
And she who waters the riotous jasmine blooms in winter on her sun-soaked
balcony;
And I who have known them all
And I who have been them.