May 29, 2020
A History of Baklawa
By Danyal Kim
When I was a Muslim college boy in Chicago
I ate at a Middle Eastern restaurant
in the Uptown neighborhood, on Wilson street.
The man behind the counter formed
lime-colored falafel balls with his hands
carrying the scent of his hidden dreams.
He served baklawa,
shards of hardened honey
studded with pistachios and walnuts.
It came with Arabic coffee
to offset the sweetness;
sugar coalesced into icicles poking at my tongue.
The owner always served me, his favorite customer,
an extra cup of coffee
and we said, salaam with a smile when I left.
Baklawa crumbs gleamed like golden nuggets
resting on top of my dollar bill on the table.
When I was a Muslim college boy in Chicago
I recited a poem about baklawa during an open mic
hosted by the Muslim student club.
The host, a proud Palestinian man, admonished me
for not pronouncing it baklava.
There is no “V” in Arabic.
Baklava is the way white people
and Ottoman Imperialists say it.
A techno beat spliced with the adhan.
My friend, Sana, a proud Syrian woman,
loved my poem.
She promised she would bake me
an entire pan of baklawa that we’d share.
I promised to cook a kettle of coffee.
I will melt cubes of sugar in a silver stomach
lined with Yemeni coffee beans and cardamom.
She never did make me that batch of baklava
becoming too busy with work and school.
After college, Sana married and moved to Baltimore
and I never saw her again.
The Middle Eastern restaurant closed down,
became a generic coffee shop.
Their coffees are stained with the taste of
Styrofoam
and everyone keeps to themselves
staring at their tiny laptop screens.
***
Several years after graduating college,
I was no longer a believing Muslim
and had a job I hated.
One day, after my shift ended,
head pounding from being yelled at by people in the welfare office,
I ate at a popular, Middle Eastern fast food chain.
Line cooks behind the counter
assembled sandwiches robotically,
like motorized arms in a car factory.
I bought a piece of baklava, encaged in plastic.
It was drowned in salted melted caramel,
an innovation of the owners who thought baklava
was too ethnic for their consumers.
The flesh of the baklava was soggy and limp.
Taste of honey and rose water whisked away
by muddy floods…
they finished me off.
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