Shahé Mankerian: Educating the Son

I got my schooling at the morgue.
A summer job, my mother thought,
would keep the streets out of her son.
It was a booming business death.

The year was 1975.
A civil war was brewing and
morticians needed a better help.
I was in charge of clipping nails.

All toes and fingers had to look
pristine. With rubbing alcohol
and cotton balls, I cleaned and washed
dry blood from children with no legs,

from men who went to work at dawn
and never found their way back home;
their faces like shoes with no soles.
I smiled because I didn’t know

another way to deal with shock.
Some afternoons I sat on slabs
of marble eating feta cheese
on moldy bread and watching wives

identifying faceless men
as mates, and mothers who like doves
descended slowly on their sons’
decapitated corpses. Then,

I wondered if my mother would
look for me when the evening came.
Would she remember that I was
her only son and that I cleaned

boys my own age? I witnessed death
before I could live. “Mother, stay
awake. Don’t look for him among
the dead. He lives. He lives. He lives.”

Copyright Shahé Mankerian. Used here by kind permission of the author.

Shahé Mankerian: Lord’s Prayer

Lord’s Prayer: Age 8

Dear Jesus, the monster
finally sleeps just around
sunrise. All night

he beds with me. I can’t
close my eyes; he touches me
all over. Mother thinks

I play with my flash-
light in the dark,
but I wiggle my toes

under the comforter in fear.
I want to make sure
he’s not there, poking

me with dirty fingernails
because I wet my bed. Jesus,
eat the monster

for dinner. I’ll give you
a fork, a knife. Slice him
to pieces before you

swallow. Use my blanket
as a napkin; clean your chin.
I’ll help you, bless you,

I won’t even chew
on the wafer and break
you like a wish bone.



Lord’s Prayer: Age 28

Dear Jesus, snap
the cables and let the box
full of monster fall.

I’m used to wearing
socks under the blanket,
but today I will stand

barefoot on the grass.
If he tries to crawl
back out, I won’t run.

Now, he’s so fat he can’t
fit under my bed, and
the closet is too dark.

The last time he fell
asleep, I wanted to steal
his dentures. He snored,

coughed foam full
of mucus, toy cars, slingshot,
then cursed you, Jesus.

That was the last time;
he puffed a lone breath
as his ribcage sank.

I feed him cakes
of dirt and watch the box
disappear from view.

Copyright Shahé Mankerian. Used here by kind permission of the author.

Shahé Mankerian: Starting a Trail

They dragged a man down the street
with gunshot celebrations,
with gold-plated Christs around their necks,
with boys learning to throw stones.

They dragged a man
who worshiped the other god,
who spoke a different dialect,
who wore a militant scarf.

He lived in a metal shack
without windows, without a wife,
without the Koran on the nightstand.
He couldn’t read.

They dragged a dead man.
He died miles before.
He died long before a rope was tied
around his ankle. He died

when he carried his first gun,
when he was fourteen,
when he realized god was a bullet,
when he pulled the trigger.

Copyright Shahé Mankerian. Used here by kind permission of the author.

Introducing Shahé Mankerian

Poet/playwright Shahé Mankerian spent his formative years in Beirut, Lebanon. After migrating to the United States, he received his graduate degree in English from California State University, Los Angeles. In 2003, he won both the Erika Mumford Prize and the Daniel Varoujan Award from the New England Poetry Club. Recently, Edifice Wrecked nominated his poem “She’s Hiding My Keys” for the 2004 Pushcart Prize. In 2005, his play Vort (Worm) was adapted into a short film; it premiered at the Silver Lake Film Festival spring of 2006. Recently, his play “Little Armenia” debuted at Hollywood’s prestigious Fountain Theatre.

Shahé Mankerian: My Name

To the American ear
Shahé is a mistake.
It’s a crazy consonant
malfunction, alphabetic
disorder. The boys at Starbucks
want to relabel me: “Shane,
your coffee’s ready!”
“Sean, non-fat latte, extra foam.”
It’s no use correcting them,
because in their world I am
wrong and they’re right.
In their world Armenian is
a typo, it should be American.
Computers often recognize me
as a verb: Shake, shave, share-
Depends who wants to play
Scrabble with me that day.
My name is Shahé;
Shale sounds nice,
but it’s not my name.
In Turkish, “Shash” means
cross-eyed peasant.
It’s not my name.
Shat is the past
tense of shit.
It’s not my name.
Shawe almost sounds
like a playwright.
Shaqe sounds like a basketball player.
Shame,
shame,
shame,
not my name.
My name is Shahé.
It has a powerful connotation of the Shah,
and a simple “héh” like a whisper,
like a sigh on a cold winter day,
like an end of a poem.

Copyright Shahé Mankerian. Used here by kind permission of the author.