//the recipe for a perfect shawarma//

my sister told me when I was seven
that our occasional shawarmas
from zam zam,
the hotel across the masjid
at the center of our city;
the chicken that was stacked up and cut down,
in the heat of a kiln,
to the rhythm of the knives,
the vegetables drenched in vinegar, shrunken,
a pickle with the khubz;
were all but deceitful lies.

the perfect shawarmas, instead she said
belonged to the arabis across the sea;
in persia; as ummumma mistakenly calls
the desert of many comings and goings;
meat spiced right, charred, soft,
its juiciness spilling over
to the bread, tender.  
my ustad just had me memorise new alphabets a day ago,
alif, baa, taa, saa
the perfect shawarmas, like the alifs and baas
belonged across the sea, I was told.
zam zam missed the hit of the spices,
like i missed my jeem and saad

my arabi was frail,
but i learnt enough to know that
with ز starts zam zam,
the water that emerged in the harshness of a desert;
the hotel near the masjid,
modishly mispronounced 'sam sam' in town,
a white man's name stringed together twice,
unnecessarily.

like I learnt that with ف starts falasteen,
a land butchered yet brave.
the other day a woman claimed Palestine was a lie,
for arabi lacked a 'P'
who will tell them that falasteen,
like all oppressed,
never existed to quench white wet dreams
of mispronunciations
compensating their parched imaginations
copiously.

shawarma starts with a ش;
a sheen, my ustad taught me,
three triangular dots atop a seen
like the س in فلسطين; falasteen
my sister told me that perfect shawarmas
belonged across the sea,
like the alifs and baas of my arabi qaaida,
like the jeem and saad I missed,
like the stolen land, butchered yet brave,
free,
from the river to the sea.