Too many, too many wires and tubes, too soon for a child. Too dark in this room for a child. I used to be scared of the dark.

Babies should be laid on their backs to reduce the risk of suffocation. I used to sleep on my stomach, hands and feet and covers tucked in, every crevice sealed, cocooned, so the dark of the room wouldn’t enter.

I would wait for the soft swish of Mama’s slippers, reassuring me that the floor still existed. Wait for her hand on my back, through the covers, then she would sing…

Tiri ya tiyara, tiri…

The words I did not know I remembered flow into my head. It has been years since that lullaby, years since I sang in Arabic, since I thought in Arabic; the words sounded wrong in my head. Like they didn’t belong to the Sama who came to the US. They sound perfect now, in this room. I lean over the incubator. Through the plastic wall:

Tiri ya tiyara, tiri, ya warek wa khitan

Fly off, fly, paper plane and string,

I want to be a child, on the neighbors’ roof, again,

and have time forget me there.

He does not stir.

“That’s lovely. Is that Arabic you’re singing?” Dr. Farber asks.

“Yes, I’m from Syria.”

“I’ve been there.”

I look at her in surprise. She smiles and her cheeks turn a soft pink.

“Damascus, Aleppo, beautiful cities. I went there just before the war began. The music, the spices… I remember this one souk, even the air tasted of spices there.”

I watch her return there with an ease I envy.

“I suppose it’s quite different now.”

I nod. Different.

“Do you have family there?”

“My parents live in Damascus.”

“Is that where your husband is?”

The answer sticks in my throat, dry as the sumac in Souk al-Hal, not the souk she would have visited. Foreigners visit Al-Hamidiyah. For the second time today, I am envious of Dr. Farber, this woman who can go places like Damascus, Aleppo, return home to a place in Boston…

I turn to Naseem and continue to sing:

‘Alli fo’ stouh b’aad, ‘a nasmeh el khajouleh,

Akhadouni ma’ahom el welad wa raddouli el toufouleh

Over distant roofs, on a timid breeze,

The children took me off with them…

The notes trill and flit. There is music inside the words.

If only we could run away, fly off on that paper plane,

It is too soon to grow up still.

Let the pomegranate blossoms sway in the orchards,

That the children may play…