17 pages • 34 minutes read
Fatimah AsgharIf They Should Come for Us
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Travel
In “If They Should Come for Us,” Fatimah Asghar uses travel imagery like maps and other images that link with place, location, and navigation as a motif throughout the poem. The speaker finds her people “on the street” (Line 2), and takes us to “the airport” (Line 13), a location of some global contention after the so-called Muslim ban on travel to the United States in January 2017. The reader meets “the muslim man who abandons / his car at the traffic light” (Lines 15-16), and “the lone khala at the park” (Line 20). The reader learns that the speaker’s “compass / is brown & gold & blood” (Lines 23-24); their “compass” (Line 25) is also “a muslim teenager” (Line 25) on “the subway platform” (Line 27). In the latter third of the poem the reader travels from “sand” (Line 34) and “ocean” (Line 35), through floral-infused air and back to “the street” (Line 39), now a dangerous place, shard-strewn and dark. In the end, the speaker looks to their own sky to “follow” (Line 45) the “map” (Line 44) drawn by their people.
Nature
The poet’s use of nature imagery heightens the sense of connectivity between the speaker and her community. For example, stars and the sky, as well as weather, figure prominently in “If They Should Come for Us.” These are all elements of nature that everyone experiences, no matter where in the world they are, the existence of weather, the stars and the sky have an equalizing effect. First, the reader finds “the old woman’s sari dissolving to wind” (Line 6), as her “bindi [becomes] a new moon on her forehead” (Line 7), referencing both wind and the moon, which are more elements of weather and sky. The speaker then sews “the star of her to my breast” (Line 9), summoning both the yellow star of the Nazi regime and the brilliance of the heavens above that the speaker sees reflected in the elder woman.
The natural image of the “dandelion seed” (Line 11) of the toddler’s hair conjures an image of the seed taking flight in the breeze, continuing the motif of weather and lending it an innocence. The weather turns considerably more ominous when the speaker announces, “if they come for you they / come for me too in the dead / of winter” (Lines 31-33). Immediately, however, the speaker sweeps the reader to the beach, where “a flock of / aunties step out on the sand / their dupattas turn to ocean” (Lines 33-35). By the grace of “a colony of uncles” (Line 36), “a thousand jasmines bell the air” (Line 37). As in nature, where groups of wild creatures coexist for protection and warmth, so do the people of the speaker’s community. At this point in the poem, the speaker takes us back to the sky, saying of their people, “I follow you like constellations” (Line 38). The map that the speaker chooses to follow is not charted on land, but mapped in the sky, in starlight.
Clothing
Clothing and modes of dress serve as a motif throughout “If They Should Come for Us,” particularly in the way dress indicates an individual’s culture and identity. That the speaker finds their people “on the street” (Line 2) echoes the contemporary notion of streetwear, a category of fashion notable for its individual expression. The characters in the poem dress with distinction. The reader sees “the old woman’s sari” (Line 6) before the speaker sews “the star of her to [their] breast” (Line 9). In this gesture, the speaker connects the fabric of the elder to the fabric of themselves.
The reader meets “the lone khala at the park / pairing her kurta with crocs” (Lines 20-21), and appreciates the juxtaposition of traditional dress with mass-produced plastic and comfortable footwear. The “muslim teenager” (Line 25) in “snapback & high tops” (Line 26) is a symbol of hip youth, but still recognized as Muslim by the speaker, acknowledged as a “compass” (Line 25) for the speaker, a way to see a path forward. In contrast to the urban youth, the “dupattas” (Line 35) of the “aunties” (Line 34) “turn to ocean” (Line 35) in the “dead / of winter” (Lines 32-33). In this way the head scarves are magical garments, powerful enough to vanquish harsher elements of nature like “winter” (Line 33).
