My father is not a particularly handy man, as my mother will not hesitate to explain, and he has never been one. He fixes my closet door when the hinges malfunction, and he taught me how to change light bulbs safely and mow the lawn evenly, but other than that there’s not much I remember. My mother has been pleading with him for years to pave the driveway and he hasn’t made a move to do it. So why he took the initiative to cut down the trees that one summer, I don’t know.

We were living in a narrow townhouse at the time. My bedroom there was Pepto-Bismol pink and had a white metal bunk bed that I hung curtains from and used to stage puppet shows for my sister. Eight years ago. Just over five miles away from where I sit now. It was a fifteen minute drive there when we last dropped by to look at our old home.

We had two pear trees. Stout, stubby, and vertically challenged, they weren’t much to look at. Old, gnarly, hideous things. Nearly barren, too, almost literally fruitless - the few fruit they produced were rock-hard and more likely to shatter your jaw than be preserved as jam. So short that the umbrella of shade they may or may not have created was impossible to sit under. Regardless, they gave an impressive shadowy effect during summer evening barbecues, and they provided children who only ever known apartment balconies before something to boast about. Having your own fruit trees could be something out of heaven. Jannah, as it’s said in Arabic.

Or not Jannah, as it turned out. After moving in, we had to wait until the summer heat to learn that the trees were actually fruit trees, and that they did in fact bear the occasional fruit, and that this occasional fruit would only be helpful for extracting loose teeth and attracting ravenous flies honey bees. Honey is a traditionally considered a blessing for Muslims - a prime example of God’s love for humans - but does anyone like flies?

And so my mother nagged. “I could grow watermelon here,” she lamented. “Wouldn’t you rather have watermelon than these inedible pears? Wouldn’t that be better?” I despised watermelon at that age - the tale about the boy who swallowed seeds and grew a watermelon in his belly haunted me until I finished grade school - but even I agreed that it would, in fact, a better deal.

My father must have agreed. In fact, he proved his dedication to the cause by cutting the trees down only one year after my mother’s entreaties began. I don’t know how it happened. It must have been a quick process, because they were there when I left for school in the morning and they were gone by the time I came back. He must not have known what he was doing, either, because both stumps peeked up from the grass.

“Why did you cut the trees down?” I asked him.

“The fruit brought all sorts of bugs when it rotted,” he said, and pointed to his arms. “Bug bites. The yard is full of bees and flies.”

It was true, you couldn’t even walk through without breathing them in and having them tattoo your legs. Swarms of insects. But God, he cut a fruit tree. A fruit tree. I remembered what we learned Saturdays at the mosque: even in times of war, the prophet Muhammad had instructed his followers to never cut down fruit trees, for that would leave the innocent people without a means to live and support themselves.

I hated bug bites, though. My feet and elbows were constantly swollen with bites from traipsing barefoot in the grass catching fireflies.

“Why did you leave the stumps?” I asked.

“I tried to pull them out with ropes,” he said guiltily. “Your mother is going to be angry when she gets back. But I couldn’t do it. I don’t know how people do it.”

Of course she would be furious. How do you make a watermelon patch with two arthritic tree stumps in the center? We spent the weekend straining at the rope strangling the stumps. To no avail. My mother came home and had her fit before joining us in our new struggle, trying to shovel the stumps out.

“I wish we just left the trees there,” moaned my younger sister, scratching at her calves furiously. “I don’t even like watermelons. I hate watermelons.”

My father set his shovel down to rub at the red, raised skin on the insides of his wrists. “I’d rather deal with the bugs,” he admitted, defeated.

I picked up the small metal shovel they had given me to use and held it between my feet. It fell, so that the blade pointed towards a patch of brilliantly healthy, green grass - an anomaly in our yard, despite our half-hearted efforts. The sunlight filtered a single pane of the air: a cloud of invisible, microscopic flies fluttering against our cheeks. An umbrella-shaped plot of Amazon green.

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How do I measure the depth of your reciprocal emotion 

Is our proportion positive, negative, or zero 
by height, I win,  by weight, I win, 
by intelligence quotient, I win, 
by the length of your hair, you win, 
by the softness of your skin, you win, 
by the teaspoon of honey you stir in with my coffee, you win

How to ascertain the length of your reciprocal devotion 

I conduct experiments - if I spill my tea, will you clean up after me,  
if I slip while shaving, you swipe me gently with cotton balls 
and rubbing alcohol, but how can I be certain - 

How can I be sure you are not just polite, or just a dream

I hand this to you and say nothing, only laugh lightly
I do not know what you will make of it
Have I written another inequality  
An equation, but impossible to solve

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we stand
this time nose to shoulder
for three birthdays, i was younger but taller
still, i’ve grown, brother

i called to complain about algebra 
and woke you just in time for philosophy lectures 
this time i cross the t’s in your essay 
you look at the red lines and crumple the sheet

you used to put your arm around my shoulder 
and then turn it into a headlock 
now you’re afraid to wash my laundry 
are we not the same skin and blood
just a different body

this time i’ll wait for your call
if it came i would ignore it
just to feel superior this once

the negative linear relationship 
between the distance of time from space 
who does it hurt the most

we stood, once, head to chin 
this time, brother, it feels like 
mountain to valley

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