If They Should Come for Us

“If They Should Come for Us,” first published in Poetry Magazine in 2017, is written in free verse in one continuous stanza, without punctuation nor capitalization. The title suggests a possible threat, setting up a conflict of “They” and “Us.” In the first line, the speaker asserts a claim: “these are my people & I find / them on the street” (Lines 1-2), the “street” (Line 2) being a public rather than an intimate or specific space. The speaker, however, does not overtly announce her own presence to her people, but instead chooses to “shadow” (Line 2) them “through any wild all wild” (Line 3). They are “a dance of strangers in my blood” (Line 5). The two different settings in which the speaker encounters her people, an urban road and the “wild” (Line 3), indicate that the speaker finds her people everywhere.

The poem progresses into an observed gallery of distinct individuals, beginning with a female elder, her “sari dissolving to wind / bindi a new moon on her forehead” (Lines 6-7). The clothing and mark are typical dress for many women of the Indian subcontinent, and may include Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains. The speaker says, “I claim her for my kin & sew / the star of her to my breast” (Lines 8-9), recalling the yellow star imposed upon and worn by Jewish people in Nazi Germany. The speaker chooses to identify the woman as family and as a member of a group under serious threat.

The speaker observes “the toddler dangling from stroller / hair a fountain of dandelion seed” (Lines 10-11), and says, “I claim them too” (Line 12). The hair of the child may be fair or simply as fine as dandelion seeds; the child remains ungendered. Specifics of hair color and gender are not necessary for the speaker to “claim them too” (Line 12). The speaker moves on to a “sikh uncle” (Line 13) who works in security at the airport, “the muslim man who abandons / his car at the traffic light” (Lines 15-16) to pray, the “muslim man who sips / good whiskey at the start of maghrib” (Line18-19), and the “lone khala in the park” (Line 20), “pairing her kurta with crocs” (Line 21). In referring to the Sikh security worker “at the airport” (Line 13) as an “uncle” (Line 13) and presenting the very devout Muslim man who will stop traffic to pray alongside the not-very-devout Muslim man who drinks alcohol at sunset—the time for the first prayer of the day for Muslims—the speaker ignores an opportunity to make a moral judgement on her people. The speaker says, these are all “my people” (Line 22), no matter what they do or wear. At the sight of a “muslim teenager / [in] snapback & high tops” (Lines 25-26), the speaker declares “mashallah” (Line 28), an expression of joy in Arabic. These individuals, separate as they are, represent the speaker’s community.

On lines 29 and 30, the speaker says, “my country is made / in my people’s image” (Lines 29-30). In other words, a community—or a family—is defined and shaped by its members. It is the speaker’s “country” (Line 29) that takes on the countenance of the people. Individuals are not defined by country; the speaker defines her country by its community of people.

In the latter third of the poem, the reader is re-introduced to the threatening notion of “they” (Line 21) that appears in the title: “If they come for you they / come for me too” (Lines 31-32). Here is where the individuals of the poem become a chorus “in the dead / of winter” (Lines 32-33), when “a flock of / aunties step out of the sand” (Line 34) and “turn to ocean” (Line 35), and “a colony of uncles grind their palms / & a thousand jasmines bell the air” (Lines 36-37). The speaker conjures images of birds in flight at the beach, gathering in groups for safety, and invokes a synesthesia of sound and smell when “jasmines bell the air” (Lines 37). Avian flight and flora composed of “aunties” (Line 34) and “uncles” (Line 36) provide a poetic and life-affirming alternative to the ominous implications of a “they” that might be coming “for you” (Line 31) and “for me too” (Line 32).

The speaker presents imminent danger with a mention of “glass smashing the street” (Line 39) and pronounces “our names this country’s wood / for the fire” (Lines 41-42). The distinction between “our names” (Line 41) and “this country” (Line 41) gives sacrificial overtones to the image of the bonfire. The location of the fire is no longer “my country” (Line 29), but “this” country (Line 41). Alienated from the whole, “our names” (Line 41) become the “wood” (Line 41), the incendiary element that will enflame “their dark” (Line 40). The speaker says, “my people I follow you like constellations” (Line 38), and refers to histories of survival, leading to “the long / years yet to come” (Lines 43-44). The map the speaker will follow out of “their dark” (Line 40) is not a map of any land: “I see you map / my sky the light your lantern long / ahead” (Lines 44-46). The speaker says, “my people I follow you like constellations” (Line 38)—the stars providing an ancient, reliable, and traditional way to navigate. Communities of stars cast “light” (Line 45) and show direction; they are a “lantern long ahead” (Lines 45-46), which may lead a way across treacherous lands.