Everyone was Armenian
and had an aunt named Lola
and an uncle with a gold tooth.
Everyone cooked like Araxi,
stuffing mussels with rice, hanging
cheesecloth full of yogurt
from the kitchen faucet.
Storytellers were everywhere
and they were all Armenian
and every story included a donkey
or a basket full of grain,
a village well, or an orchard of figs.
In each house, there was
Hagop or Adom or Aghavni,
and every room had an aroma
of rose water and clove,
and in every church
there was Astrig or Arshalouys
watching the incense smoke
float up like prayer.
How many Armenians there were,
appearing as if by magic,
in the butcher shops, at the cinema,
and the merchants with spun-gold,
rug sellers with knots of silver.
Even the cemeteries
were filled with Armenians.
And the sea was Armenian too,
blue like the skies of Yerevan,
and whispering in a language no one
but the sea could understand.