CAIRO

City of false gods and prophets, home of
Sutekh, precursor to Baal, the one who
dazzles, the pillar of stability. City
that speaks in whispers, city whose voice
is the creaking of melon carts in the dusty streets
of the bazaar, the muezzin’s call to prayer
that shatters the palaces of air between the mosques
and minarets frail as the spine of a bird,
city that watches you like a beggar with one
glass eye and a toothless sneer, watches you
undress after luncheon in the hotel room
of your beloved, holds her up to you like a mirror
and again you are alone. Earlier today
you followed a man dressed all in white
whose wife makes purses from the hides of ostriches
and crocodiles. You know the Nile
intimately, you are its dearest friend, you floated
downstream in a straw basket before
you were born. City whose song is a lament
for Antinous, city whose heavy, inverted stars
are the sorrows of Hadrian. The continent of Africa
sways on a gold chain around your neck. Jesus
takes your arm, walks beside you, and
tells you things He never told His disciples.
Cars go counterclockwise around the traffic circle
outside your window as the Coca-Cola marquee
embeds itself like rhinestones in the fabric
of the evening sky. Taxis
flash their beams in the interminable twilight.
You sit on the end of your bed, you think of her, you hold
the country of Egypt and all its curiosities
like blue dice in the palm of your hand. Down in the lobby
the turbaned men sit for hours smoking hookah; the scent
of melon, of lotus perfume, drifts through your open
window, and your private demons rage. Pharaoh’s
armies march into the city, leaving behind
muddy handprints, child-sized, on the walls
of an abandoned leather factory. You hear
a woman calling on her God, charming a rare
music from the deep silence of her mandolin. Your room
is the calm center of the world.