The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Un-American by Hafizah Geter

NATURALIZED CITIZEN

Mouthing amendments, our mother studied

the Constitution. Her whisper

not English, not her

Hausa tongue,

but something lower—

a car revving its engine.

Our mother memorized presidents, capital cities,

adopted habits like moving

her green card from one closet to another,

kept a manila folder for every year of her life.

In the kitchen she turned Cream

of Wheat into tuwo shinkafa,

cooked kuka until our Catholic school jumpers stunk

of crushed baobab leaves. She’d spend days in

her garden refusing to explain anything

but the marigolds.

In America, no one would say her name

correctly. I watched it rust

beneath the salt of so many tongues

like a pile of crushed Chevys.

At night, she prayed to Allah

for something from America that was more

than children. Come weekends,

we were counting

the naira in her underwear drawer.

From her calling cards, we learned

Naa goodee meant

thank you.

Kai!,

everything else.

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This selection comes from the book, Un-American, available from Wesleyan University Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Nilsa Ada Rivera.