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Descent into New York airspace is hard.
… Languages crisscross
from polyglot to melting pot.
As the cabin pressure changes,
the world shifts its weight
to the other foot. Great care
is required now in opening
the compartments of the mind.

Her Arabic thoughts, ways
of walking, of looking and talking,
wad up like a faded identity card.
Here everyone believes only Israel
is real; the people living in its shadow,
her clan and family, do not exist.
If they saw Uncle Shukri
in his checkered headscarf,
like when he let her ride
behind him on his motorbike,
they’d think he was a terrorist.
They’d never know Khaleda
has a Ph.D.
because she wears a veil they’ll
never see beyond.
“Local temperature 17 degrees.”
People reach for coats and caps.
She reaches for protection from the weather
and other kinds of cold, rummages up
lipstick to change the color of her words,
earrings to dangle like her fears,
things that cover and reveal.
“Arrival time 10:42 p.m.”
People synchronize their watches.
She tunes the dials within
for descent into another world.
Other eyes will look at her with other expectations.
The walkway opens:
This is America.
Who will be waiting?
Who will be descending?

By Mohja Kahf, associate professor of comparative literature at University of Arkansas, from her book Emails from Scheherazad, which was published in 2003  by University Press of Florida. Mohja Kahf tweets for the Syrian revolution @profkahf.