Poetry: “Green Group” by Raza Ayoob
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Green Group
with Solmaz Sharif and after a painting by Salman Toor
I
To stand at this gate
To hope to be let in
To wear a pink hat with your kameez to appear friendly
To disrobe
To call your mother and say I have arrived but not having service at this gate
To hear her say Please be safe.. it is dangerous for people like us
To recall the two songbirds that came to your tree to rest each night before their next flight
To fly and to be let in
To be let in until
II
To bend your head
To look just below his eyes
To sport whitening cream to feel a part of one of them but know you are apart
To rehearse in your head what you will say when they ask What is the purpose of your visit? and for you to struggle
getting the words out
To find a face like yours in the crowd
To tell a joke and to smile when the officer asks What do you do? and you say poetry
To sweat
III
To wonder if you will be let in
To know this nation will not be home
To lament that you could not carry a book with you
To say this is my life, a “Vulnerability Study,” and I look to it and finally enter
To recall a poem that you were so lucky to have memorized for the road
IV
To recall when Solmaz Sharif wrote,
baba holding his pants
up at the checkpoint
and know that could be you
To stare deeply at a mark on the wall to search for home
V
To be let in
VI
To long to talk to you
To be let in to your syntax
VII
To be let in until
Raza Ayoob
Raza Zain Ayoob is a poet from Karachi, Pakistan and is based in New York. He attended Northwestern University, where he studied Neuroscience and Creative Writing, and is a finalist for Frontier Poetry's 2023 Award for New Poets. Much of his work focuses on post-colonial history, collective memory, family stories, and South Asian art. He is currently working on a chapbook centered on the poetry, language and objects from the 1947 Partition of Pakistan and India.