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In 1979, a Lebanese Armenian family reaches Los Angeles, where the quiet negotiations of assimilation begin.
1. No one cares if you buried orphans your age
in the ghettos of Beirut. Act like a pressed
flower or practice selective mutism.
2. Like canker sores, place pushpins or paperclips
under the tongue to force stillness. Swallow
the nonsense about the blind sniper.
3. If teachers warn you to stop chewing
on graphite, eraser heads, pencil shavings,
pretend you’re sucking on mastic lozenges.
4. Search for moldy lavash or slices of forgotten
cardamom cake in your backpack. Chewing
crumbs will keep you from damning God.
5. In the library, the Egyptian girl hiding behind
a discolored globe will never fix your accent.
Find the courage to mouth marhaba quietly.
6. During round robin, when asked to read
Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury out loud,
drop your eyes and mumble, “I lost my place.”
7. Join the choir: a homeland, erased,
caught like chalk dust in your throat
goes unnoticed during a requiem.
from the poet — “How to Erase an Armenian Accent in Junior High” lived for years in my memory journal as scattered stanzas. It finally took shape when I numbered the sections and began to see the architecture of instruction beneath them. The poem was further refined through conversations and workshops with my partners in crime, the Zephyr Poets in Los Angeles, who helped me hear where silence needed to speak more clearly.
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