Scorpion Stings
Andrew J. Calis
He nears the end. My grandfather. He fell
at work, hit his head on a table. I
am eight or nine, too young to know what to cry
and so I watch the adults. My dad can’t tell
I’m feeling early tremors. He’s trying to quell
his own storms. Arab men don’t cry,
he said before. Not even when Samir died
from a sting and so, not now. The smell
of almost-death fills the bedroom like a cloud.
He used to beat my father. My dad
refused
to hit us, his anger channeled into loud
outbursts, a fist through a wall. He used
to yell, though. And now he stands
rocking, shaking, staring at his hands.
at work, hit his head on a table. I
am eight or nine, too young to know what to cry
and so I watch the adults. My dad can’t tell
I’m feeling early tremors. He’s trying to quell
his own storms. Arab men don’t cry,
he said before. Not even when Samir died
from a sting and so, not now. The smell
of almost-death fills the bedroom like a cloud.
He used to beat my father. My dad
refused
to hit us, his anger channeled into loud
outbursts, a fist through a wall. He used
to yell, though. And now he stands
rocking, shaking, staring at his hands.
Andrew J. Calis is an Arab-American poet, teacher, and husband, and an overjoyed father of four. His first book of poetry, Pilgrimages (Wipf & Stock, 2020), was praised by James Matthew Wilson for having ‘the intensity of Hopkins’ and for ‘layer[ing] light on light in hopes of helping us to see.’ His work has appeared in America, Dappled Things, Presence, Convivium and elsewhere, and he teaches at Archbishop Spalding High School in Maryland.
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