g r a v e l

 

In Media Res

 

if I stand in a tribe of goats

with thistles swaying in prayer

and squint to bring the daylight

moon in focus, I know I’ll never

find you in Jerusalem you are

forever leaving something, night,

sleep, darkness, love, a poem

 

left behind that wandered, found

and stopped its trek, mid-song

amid the doves that nestle in the

stones here, where water costs

more than a plane ticket and a

century can pass on camelback,

where foreign tongues shroud your

 

face, your fingers burnt by tea, a

siren in the desert sounds, crowds

collect, locusts swarm, tender morsels,

dreams, lucid, interpreted, pour through

you like sandstorms, thirst is an oasis,

the way you stare, the moon your echo,

what the body remembers and how so

 

much can go unnoticed. Like the sand

between your toes at night, you don’t

know how it got there, and almonds

blossom, unexpectedly, that scent,

zaatar pinched between fingers,

persimmons ripe and rotten, the ruins

of the castle, the reddish clay

 

you grasp, and then release. Coffee,

bitter, dust-filled, nothing tastes the

same, and something always reminds

you, the door you thought was home,

the river that’s a phone, reflections on

pint glasses, tuborg, red, like caramel,

chocolate, you hear the bells of skype

 

sounds, every night the same, and

mornings, restful, quiet, lone, you step

into the backyard, ghosts and chickens

to be fed, and cats, always, gendarmes

at the siege, you start to name things,

touchstones, take them from the river,

where you bathe your past, large hands,

 

steady, stone-like, fused from sand

and shadow, this is what you’ve been

reduced to. The whistle of desire, pain

always with pleasure, the satin of a woman,

the middle, which is always a beginning

and an end, a poem, broken, winged, a goat

bleat of the heart, always wondering if