Antony Fangary is a Coptic-American who lives in San Francisco. He is a MFA student of Poetry at San Francisco State University and was the Honorable Mention recipient of the 2015 Ina Coolbrith Poetry Prize. He curates his own reading series called Tenderlovin in the TL, which doubles as a charity event for vulnerable individual in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. His debut Chapbook, Haram is forthcoming with Etched press (2018) You can find his recent work in Welter, Waccamaw, Left-Hooks Magazine, Metonym, Mantra Review, Paragon Press and more.
Khanzir
The only coptic neighborhood in Cairo is located on the dump Zebaleen, which translates to garbage people
Yet, my grandfather left Tetelaya before the soil staled and the governor of Cairo decreed the pigs unclean, sending the pig farmers to the live and work on the dump; the coptic Falaheen became Zebeleen
Yet, I’m afraid to order something without bacon on it as someone will always ask, Oh, Because you’re muslim right?
Yet, I won’t always correct them, because some people just need a Muslim friend
Yet, the fear of scorpions and snakes would keep my grandmother’s eyes unlatched, she would lock on her children like an Ostrich watching her eggs; my father tells me he remembers hearing the other mother’s crying every time they lost a child
Yet, adolescents pigeons are killed just before flight so that their bones are tender enough to chew
Yet, my father bought a golden necklace after 9/11, he said, When people see my cross, they won’t think I’m a terrorist
Yet, my grandmother speaks better English than both of my parents. She came to America in 2011, she said the people of Egypt are perplexed
Yet, my father was there to ask one of his customers, “Please stop calling my son a nigger” as his brown skin purpled
Yet, the pig is depicted in different hieroglyphs, licking the faces of pharaohs, locked in limestone forever
Yet, adolescent bones crunch with concession
Yet, the other customers simply said “I don’t know why she didn’t say ‘Sand’ nigger”
Yet, sleep is a privilege
Yet, bacon ruins the taste of everything and I’ll eat it anyways
Yet, we laugh, Dad, the type of person to attack you, isn’t the type to notice the cross around your neck
Yet, Cairo’s dump is located on a Coptic monastery
Yet, Morsi killed all the pigs in egypt, the only meat most copts can afford
Yet, my father remembers watching three houses burn and six men die for their faith in Tatelaya one night
Yet, God doesn’t die
Yet, snakes and scorpions chiseled my grandmothers focus to a string
Yet, I sleep
I sleep knowing bacon is my biggest fear