En Route to Makkah
My sisters and I swathe down to anklesin plain shalwars and row up like duckpins in the backseat. Every pilgrimage resembles the other. The car belts down the freeway, breaches past the occasional tamarisksthat flash along the corridor unreeling barren mountains. Mother winds the radio down to mute—against the ungodlinessof stringed instruments my ears strainfor …