five poems
by Elizabeth Shanaz
Indian Rapper Rapper from India
Hanumankind tells his interviewer that he just learned
he gets motion sick.
Says he left all the food in his stomach
in the Well of Death.
He seems disappointed to be unremarkable in this way,
maybe surprised that the whiplash
from Houston to Kerala
didn’t warn him sooner.
But even elephants stumble if they step
in just the right spot.
or when they smile smiles with
lungi beards, both bordered with gold.
chopping in a voice pulsing with
drank and sambharam,
there is only steadiness piercing the trill’s wander.
Malayalam is a palindrome.
Making a Scene
Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha
flocked around a crisply ironed tablecloth in midtown,
can’t believe that Samantha has never seen
The Way We Were. Turns
out that the only thing I can’t believe is
that the only man in New York City
that Samantha won’t fuck is a Pakistani
bus boy. Leaves him to eat his heart out,
and he does.
Babu Bhatt has a fleeting dream [café] when
Seinfeld calls him “a spider in a toilet
struggling for survival.” Elaine tells him to just flush.
Serving Pakistani food sets off a series of unfortunate
events, in a city that will send him back home
by season four.
But then Babu, deported to Pakistan, somehow
gets repatriated to India. Comes back to life as
Rajesh Koothrapali’s father, surely
so proud of his astrophysicist son:
googly eyed for all variety of white women,
his accent alone carrying
the punchline.
Direct deposits don’t clear without
sacrificing dignity on the altar of Apu.
Play your part right in the parade of undesirables,
and Pakistani bus boy reincarnates over twenty
years later as Seema Patel’s father, wearing a
dull navy kurta during the festival season
while Carrie sashays in a sparkly designer lehenga.
I am surprised with myself when I meet Shooter Dival with
his toasted almond skin and hair like a cloud: the way
tears prickle my eyes when Amelia is arrested by his
physical form.
I wait patiently for him to choose one of us
instead.
On Being an Extra
I’m a diaspora kid so I love me
a Sunday with a belly filled with
roti, getting my scalp oiled,
a Hindi movie on the screen.
Subtitles in clean Consolas font because
we left some things behind in the ships.
All of it used to be escapism,
the simple excitement to “see myself on screen”
after a tired ass week of being exotic,
a token, whittled down by interactions
that combine the two.
But you have to understand I am a real
diaspora kid. From cane workers and
rice farmers. You have to understand that
my living room is filled with faces that
Pantone calls things like “potted soil” and “chaya leaf.”
You have to understand that this screen of
Hindi-speaking escapism is exclusively
peopled by milk-pale faces, with light eyes,
and sometimes a European
grandparent to boast.
I only “see myself on screen” in brief fleeting flashes.
I am the driver with no lines, folding my hands,
carrying their bags.
I am the sweaty background dancer in a cheap appliqué lehenga,
never front and center in bespoke designer.
I am the less pretty sister-in-law, used as
a tool to accentuate the gore gore mukhre heroine.
I am the waitress who gets
the hero’s order wrong before he graciously forgives
me. I am the vehicle for exhibiting his compassion that
ultimately wins his co-star’s fair and lovely heart.
I am the lady running up to your Mercedes in the
middle of the street, extorting a few rupees in
exchange for sparing you my curses on all of
your lineage.
I am the tearful villager, grateful to the fair-skinned hero
for the difference he just made in my life with his
[insert righteous non-profit work here].
I am the unlucky slum-dweller in a film that
wins awards that will line someone else’s
cherry-wood shelf in Bandra.
I am the house-help used for comic relief,
the loose end of my pallu tucked into my waist,
my language sloppy, inflective, accompanied by
hands gesticulating too generously.
I am the house-help the boss secretly fucks while
his hazel-eyed family is away,
all in the name of social commentary and
avante garde cinema.
I am a diaspora kid and the bouncy
masala dancing can never be enough,
for eyes that are searching
for a place
resembling home.
I’m a Bitch Because
after Britteney Black Rose Kapri
I told him no. Her man plopped his ugly ass in my DMs. I didn’t have
the bandwidth. I asked them not to speak to me that way. I inched up at
the stop sign. I peeped something and stopped engaging. I posted a
picture. I chose something better. I told that old woman not to call me
that word. I didn’t care enough. She doesn’t like herself. I changed. I
told him yes. I cut the line. I didn’t answer the phone. I thought I was
grown. I wanted it my way. I didn’t say thank you when he called me
pretty. I rolled my eyes when he whistled at my back. I loved someone
else. I set a boundary. I breached a boundary. I asked them why. I didn’t
beg. I said what I felt. I went without them. I stayed home instead.
You Asked and I said I Wasn’t Intimate with Him but
I showed him where I skinned my knee as a kid. We held hands on the
bus and he squeezed it when we went over a bump. We belly laughed.
We shared an umbrella. He bought something because he thought of
me. We locked eyes and I saw his twinkle. He asked me if I ate. He
showed his grandpa my picture. I told him I want to be a writer one day.
We debated politics; agreed that politicians never save us. He told me
he doesn’t like flowers because the smell reminds him of funerals. He
told me he attended many of them. He didn’t judge me. He read a book
I recommended. We solved a problem together. I ordered the same thing
as him at dinner. We fought over the bill. He asked permission before
he kissed. He told me he hates his father. He asked me what the doctor
said. We prayed together. When I spoke, he turned his entire body
toward me. I made him tea when he was sick. I caught him looking at
me in the mirror. He told his friends about me. He let me have my space.
Photo of Elizabeth Shanaz
BIO: Elizabeth Shanaz is a New York based writer. Her work has been featured in Playboy, Human/Kind, Sorjo, Defunkt, PREE Lit, Zhagaram Literary, BRAWL Literary, wildscape Literary Journal, and the Blue Minaret, among other journals and magazines. She studied writing and literature at CUNY City College before earning her law degree from NYU School of Law. She is the proud child of Guyanese immigrants. You can follow her on Instagram @lizzieshanaz