ORIENTAL'S PETRA VERSE
Ishmael: "Weather-torn & shorn mountain
Goat-hair tent beneath—
Legs crossed on desert sand”
Fadia: from between two crouching rocks a rose door
Ishmael: “a lapping tongue across—”
Fadia: not licking, but latched door
Ishmael: “a city once defeated by water—”
Fadia: Siq, or shaft, dramatically naturally positioned—holding water.
A cluster of dust sailing across to Wadi Mussa
OF MY EYE
Fadia, I say I dare not blink. If I could,
hide you in my eyelids & the nation,
too. Skip the pencilling of that plane—
It can claim a rain after cautionary papers
have planted themselves by your pillow.
No—missiles signed— goat-hair
tent here—camp of concrete.
ACT: UNDERLIFE
Alphabet Women: Under the bridge, under the bus
we carry beautiful eyes
Fadia: How an olive tree is skinny—in its branches
Alphabet Women: Do not lay down for a gaze, no veil & unveil:
We reveal red sand under fingernails
Fadia: Our fingernails immersed
Alphabet Women: Chase Ishmael away, chase sand from his eyes
so he shall see the olive tree & let her—
Fadia: After the English crucified fathers on a cactus tree for two days & fathers never confessed
Alphabet Women: Then yesterday breaks—on the ground
Fadia: Shrapnel of yesterday Ishmael constructs into a mirror:
Image not ours after us
SONG FOR EYES
1.
What is it that averted
my eyes off yours, Fadia—
or is the word Arabic, a word for reply?
My eyes—eyelids heavy— is it
sleep? Between your eyes & mine
a rifle.
2.
Fucking— is it anger in the hazel
of your eyes? Might be
the perpetual green of your land.
I will blow on olive
trees until the fake branches
disappear, or pluck black
irises for a wedding wreath.
3.
Fadia, please come flying
over pillars, all seven of them
& the wisdom will rub me until
I come flying too—I warn you: I may be eating
my words behind the hem
of your skirt. On the hill,
rather your courtyard,
Ishmael built himself a dwelling.
4.
Come for words under the desert, not
Ishmael’s fists under sand searching
for kin he killed by friendly fire.
I have seen them all, framed by black rectangles & glowing.
Their eyes nothing in them hazel.