The Guest Towel — Sophie Baryalai
The porch is scrubbed until the wood pales, a bleached greeting. Inside, the tongue performs its ritual: kindness balanced on the front teeth while molars grind the border. They are people of the double-lock, bolting the door against the ghost they poured tea for.
Their mat is a decoy, a coarse coconut-fiber snare. They break the bread, then count the silver after I leave. The welcome narrows in the hallway, hissing like something shaken loose in the throat.
The gin sleeps behind the hymnal. The hand that waves hello is the hand that slams the gate.
In the bathroom, the guest towels sit stacked like pale stones, untouched by the dirt of my skin. They polish the tabernacle brass until the metal forgets its face.
I stand in the foyer with my mother’s name braided into my hair, the slow resins of oud and clove, they cannot name. I reach for the moon and the pen, something older than this lace, while the ruler of the Word presses its edge against my cheek. They watch the color of my shadow on the linoleum before deciding whether it belongs.
Someone asks where I am from, meaning before the map begins. I give them the nearest town, the river that floods in July and leaves minnows glittering in the ditches, the gas station where boiled peanuts bleed their salt through paper cones. They nod, polite and unconvinced. My name hangs between us, damp laundry on a forgotten line.
It is a clean quiet, starched and careful with names. I stand in the doorway while they smooth their cuffs. The water is cold. The splash becomes another sound wrung from the hymn. I leave a crescent of damp on the guest towel, a yellow bloom of turmeric and river water.
The light does not warm the house. It only reveals the rot in the joists. The termites are praying, too, their small jaws working. They eat through cotton, through altar, through the bones of the place, teaching the beams to fall.
Sophie Baryalai is an Afghan-American writer from Texas. A frequent contributor to the literary community, her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Lemonwood Quarterly, World Insane, Eunoia Review, Blue Minaret, Qafiyah Review, and others. When she isn’t wrestling with a new draft, she loves spending her time outdoors, especially during the height of a Texas summer, or with her dogs. Sophie hopes to continue capturing the heavy, honest truths of the diaspora through her craft.