My Name
by Shahé Mankerian

To the American ear
Shahé is a mistake.
It’s a crazy consonant
malfunction, alphabetic
disorder. The boys at Starbucks
want to relabel me: “Shane,
your coffee’s ready!”
“Sean, non-fat latte, extra foam.”
It’s no use correcting them,
because in their world I am
wrong and they’re right.
In their world Armenian is
a typo, it should be American.
Computers often recognize me
as a verb: Shake, shave, share-
Depends who wants to play
Scrabble with me that day.
My name is Shahé;
Shale sounds nice,
but it’s not my name.
In Turkish, “Shash” means
cross-eyed peasant.
It’s not my name.
Shat is the past
tense of shit.
It’s not my name.
Shawe almost sounds
like a playwright.
Shaqe sounds like a basketball player.
Shame,
shame,
shame,
not my name.
My name is Shahé.
It has a powerful connotation of the Shah,
and a simple “héh”…

Open Door Policy
by Shahé Mankerian

I locked the door and placed
my palm on the poster, Fight
Evil with Poetry, held by magnets

of marginalized finger puppets.
I closed my eyes and heard
wily ghosts of bygone children

recite haikus, pitter patter of feet
in the empty hallways,
and a distant scuffle in front

of the water fountain. A forgotten
plate of hummus leaked oil
on the word processor.

The AC unit hummed for no one.
If I had decided to close this door
in February, a child from blue

class might’ve assumed I was dead.
Maybe he went to heaven, drank
coffee, and started a new school.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Poet Shahé Mankerian is the principal of St. Gregory Hovsepian School in Pasadena, California. His manuscript, History of Forgetfulness, has been a finalist at the Bibby First Book Competition, the Crab Orchard Poetry Open Competition, the