Echo & Elixir 3

Cigarettes in the bar, a beer,

the odyssey ends with a boarding pass.

In the duty-free shops, does one buy

perfume or Tunisian dates?

People do not ask how long you’ve been away,

but what have you brought?

And being away is all you bring.

Trepidation fills your shoulder bag,

and the ache writes a book of coffee

grinds and your mother’s bread.

I’ve been reading Plato looking for a word.

Dirt reddens and browns, yellows and grays.

Abdulhamid the Scribe, Barthes, Fanon,

Abdulrahman Falcon of Quraish.

Gilgamesh still on his boat waiting

to land on beaches full of people who wait.

In your absence, there is no avoiding legend,

yet you are still a child.

Sappho and Khansa taught you that.

And the life in the hands you shake,

the poetry in the sand more than the poetry in poetry.

I am a spirit and a body.

The trees speak a language of light and thorns.

Let me tell you a story now.

You see a city in the clouds

and give it a woman’s name,

always a woman’s name.

Let me tell you about my loved one’s hair.

You take a blade of grass

and for a second

you are a citizen of its taste.