After We Will Control the Vertical by Diana Al-Hadid (b. 1981, Aleppo, Syria)
………….Screenprint on paper, RISD Museum, Providence
These buildings, black outlines, could be unfinished
or destroyed. Their hollows are streaked with light,
thin lines varied in height, in peach, orange,
olive green that could be seen as rocketing up
or raining down. Tell me either, and I would
believe you. Brightness is mostly absent by the end
of the print, the dark lines thicker, furred, like roots
ripped from the ground. Behind the whole scene,
a slate-grey sky seeps through, as if everything
is floating, unmoored. Bombs are falling miles
from your home while I still live in the city where
we grew up together, where most summers, we return
to this museum where I ask you about paintings,
and you share their history. Since the invasion,
you text a photo each morning, hoping to temper
my worry. Palm trees. Dragon fruit from your garden.
The Mediterranean, unfazed and dazzling. I lean in
to the canvas, the way I’ve seen you do, looking closely,
trying to connect to the greater story, and what I see
are bodies, small and camouflaged enough to feel like
a mind trick. You must be sleeping. It is so warm here
I almost forget the oaks outside are bowed with ice.