The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: We Had Mansions by Mandy Shunnarah

---

only an american

Just like the Brits to rename our country
with a P: a letter we don’t have, a sound
our tongues wrestle to say. It’s not Palestine
like old buddy, old pal, old friend, but Falastin.
They’d know Arabic is phonetic if they could
read, but that’s an occupier for you—unwelcome
guest. We have names impossible to mispronounce
& yet they expect the world to say it their way.

In their new country, my grandparents
give their children “good American names”
impossible to mispronounce by the native-born
of this land. They called their first child, a daughter,
Patricia—with a P. Because who would believe
an umma & baba from Falastin would name their
child with a letter their mouths refused to speak,
damned to a lifetime calling her Badrisha.

Only an American would do that.

---