Top Shelf
Ke-neen Ke-a-ee Ke-is-touse E-onas ton E-onon. Amem.
When my dad left I knew I had to protect Ma’ma
I didn’t know if I trusted God enough yet
So I climbed up the to the top shelf in the closet
Grabbed his Berretta .22 and ran to my room
Tear the handwriting
Of our sins
O, Christ our God
I think it may have been the first time I felt adrenaline
There I was
Alone with my dad’s gun
The only trace of him I had left
Holding the weight of what it means to be a man in my eight-year-old hand
Shooting invisible bad guys in the dark
Save us
I cried to the Lord
And he heard me
Something about the click of the hammer seemed wise
So I studied its character
I was the man of the house
With the 7 bullet magazine
Wooden panel grips
And tip up barrel
The gun was small,
And fit my hand perfectly
Like something outta King Arthur
God who was nailed
To the cross killed
Sin by the tree
I pointed it at the right side of my head
Pretended to be the Captain at the end of titanic who put a bullet through his right temple as the boat sank
I pulled the trigger
But it was a different click this time
It was hesitant
By your death you
Made alive a dead man
Whom you created
With your hand
And when I put the gun down to see why
It fired
Taking dominion of everything in the room like my dad would when he yelled
The window shook
The lamp rang
And the room reeked of gunpowder
Put to death our pains
by the nails with which
you were nailed
It was just a popgun from the Ice Cream Man, Ma’ma…
I’m sorry… go back to sleep
I put the .22 in a shoebox under my bed
But I couldn’t sleep from the adrenaline
So I lay
Breathing in gunpowder and fear of god
The Fairest Faith
I asked Abuna about boys in other places
In the middle of confession
I asked him if a boy born Muslim would burn in hell
He told me that if the boy dies as a boy
He will have a place in heaven with Christ
But if he dies a man
Having encountered Christ
and remains Muslim
he will burn
“But what if he is a good man, Abuna?
What if he is a good dad and a good husband, Abuna?”
“If he is a good man,
Christ will find his way into his life before he dies.”
Holy, Holy, Holy
Oh Holy Trinity
Have mercy upon us
In class
I would hold onto the ivory Coptic cross Abuna Binyameen gave me at the monastery.
I wiped my tears
He told me I was a good boy, and to squeeze the cross if I ever need God.
When I cry out,
God of my right-
eouness heard me
I went on a retreat with some of the monks to the mountains
We prayed the hours in Agpeya every morning and every evening
Ate Orban after Ashayah
woke up at dawn for the Divine Liturgy
Oh Lord, do
not rebuke me
in your anger
as symbols clashed and the triangles mingled with with the smoke during the Prayer of the Veil
I saw Our Lord and Savior appear
His eyes rolling up to thorned crown of smoke
My eyes following
until I collapsed to the sight of sacrifice
How long, O Lord,
do you forget me
It was my fault his side bled water
Keep me
O Lord, to you
O Lord, I have
Lifted up my soul
I felt the shame the bible told me about as I rubbed my starving stomach that night
The lord is my light
and my salvation
God shall pity us
When I was in class a white girl asked me about the cross Abuna gave me
I smiled and told her it was a Coptic cross
“what denomination is your family? I’m Coptic Orthodox.”
I was excited to meet another believer
“There is only one true Christianity”
she walked away and the doubts curled
my faith was dirty
was brown
O God, be
mindful to my help
the Lord is he
who shepherds me
I will exalt you, O Lord
I was tired of being hungry
and started stealing
knowing in the back of my mind I could always repent before death like one of the thieves that died next to Christ
Judge me O Lord,
Have mercy upon
me O God,
Gidu knew I wasn’t coptic anymore
I stopped saying goodnight to God before I slept and
telling Abuna Gawargious about my sins on Wednesdays
Incline Your ear,
O lord, He who
dwells in the help
of the most high
The Holy Hymns were fleeting from my consciousness
And the taste of Orban was leaving my memory along with the fear of God.
I kept sinning
The Lord reigned
The Lord said to my Lord
I loved because the
Lord will hear the voice
One Palm Sunday I went to church.
I wore a palm-folded cross on my shirt and Gidu pointed at me in front of my mom
“Shoofie, Hanafie! He is a Christian now.”
Gidu looked down after he said that and I felt like I began mirroring his eyes
I believe therefore
I have spoken
Out the depths I have cried to you
I started to hate God. I felt betrayed, like a child. I resented the Abunas.
O Lord I have cried to You,
hear me. Praise the Lord
Who was going watch after my me and my mom?
O my soul
Let my supplication
come near before You
Palm Sunday, 2016
Ednin
Abuna blessed Coptic deaths
ethereal
forever
God has intent
Justifying killed lovers
Masr needs options
protest quietly
rigiously
Synthesize tragedy unsteadily
Without X-ing
Yawning zeal
Bakhour
buying blunts, at Bread and Butter
Backwoods specifically
I ask, Ezayak?
when I see the man has the same eyebrows as me
he replies Keifa Halak?
I don’t know how to respond
so the conversation stales
then he asked where I’m from
Enna Masri, my family is from Asyute and Tatalayah,
HAHA! You are Saiidiiiihh!
he laughed
Do you need help finding your way back home, Saidi?
I didn’t
I peeled the skin off the backwood
rewrapped it
rubbed the tip with a flame
then called my father
to ask what the man meant
Saidi means you’re ignorant
A peasant from upper egypt
the smoke curled
from the cherry and seams
like snake skin staling
Then he told me a joke
On a dirt road leading to a saidi village, there was a hole
Now, everyone in the village was breaking their ankles and falling in the hole
So three of the village elders got together in an attempt to solve the problem:
The first elder suggested that they should convince the near by city to donate
an ambulance next to the hole
So when people fall, they can be driven to the hospital right away
The second elder said that was a horrible idea and that they should just have the city build a
hospital by the hole, so when people fall in the hole they are already by a hospital
The third elder said that those were both horrible ideas, and that the solution was simple: they fill
the hole with dirt, smooth it out, and dig a new hole for people to fall into,
next to the hospital they already had
I asked my dad if he thought we were really
that dumb
that dependent…
He laughed, and said
Most of us can’t read
don’t have electricity
but we are a strong people
Be proud
the blunt burned to stale ash
snake skin crusting off
my tongue with each pull
I asked my dad why he is proud of being saidi,
But ashamed we weren’t white
he said we aren’t in egypt anymore
and it would give us a better life
I breathed in the last bit of skin
thanked him
Antony Fangary is a Coptic-Egyptian American who lives in San Francisco. He is an MFA student of Poetry at San Francisco State University and was the Honorable Mention recipient of the 2015 State-wide Ina Coolbrith Poetry Prize. You can also find his work in 2017 edition of Welter, Waccamaw, Left-Hooks, and University of Iowa’s BARS.