In Istanbul, the owner of the pashmina shop
said, “The body is like a gift
between husband and wife.”
He said the burqa, the hijab,
were like human wrapping paper.
I take scarves from the shelf,
unfold and refold some,
drape the red one
over my head, align the fabric
with my hairline. My blond
is gone: now I see the cashmere
is auburn like her hair.
It’s not about Istanbul
anymore. It’s about back home,
back then, her shoulders
sinking into the water
in the bathtub of that Motel 6.
I had stopped by to check
on her. She told me not to worry,
shedding the oversized
button-up of the man
who left her there.
He took off his wedding ring before
he touched her, put it back when he left.
Naked and alone, she drank
vodka with mango juice.
“These American girls, they don’t save
their beauty for the husband,” the shopkeeper
continued. Maybe it’s true, I think, because she loved
to be dangerous. She invited him
to touch her.
“What do I have to do
for class tomorrow?” she asked.
“Wear that skirt,”
his reply.
“A woman is to cherish, a woman is –
how do you say? – precious.”
I walked in,
herlips parted to kiss
the surface of the bathwater, her red hair
fanned out, a regal and waterlogged crown,
she began to swallow
and drown.
“In Turkey we think America is maybe
too free. What do you think?”
I reached under her
shoulders to pull her up. She sputtered,
she breathed again, we drained the tub
together.
“Did you hear me?
Too free, too free?”
I still hear the crude
sound of the drain,
“I am emptying,
I am emptying.” I still see
the puckered skin on the soles
of her feet hanging
limply over the end of the bed,
the balloon-shaped bruise
on the back of her thigh, her wet hair
clumped in snake-shapes
down her back.
She breathed like raking gravel.
I stripped the bed
of its sheets. I remember now:
I wrapped her
in them, I found her clothes
for her. I braided her hair.