Taba
by and published in Edition Eleven of Pomegranate
Cut from the side of a mountain
in a world where the wind’s a warm breath,
the transplant town under Israel’s eyebrow
imports its own country’s culture.
A pentagram of hotels photoshopped into the desert
like abaci hung in a jungle.
At sun-up the horizon’s a grey forever
but Jordan’s lights line the night’s horizon.
I never think of you Kathryn,
but the buffet included a cauldron of humus
and an inexhaustible pile of warm pitas,
I expect just reading those words makes you happy.
Friday’s a faux-festival in the town
they parade a camel outside the sham shisha-bar
and a child does a short dance of sorts
before returning to his bracelet stall.
I got sun-stroke on the first day of Ramadan,
sweated it out under the hum of the air-con
eventually leaving into the warm roar of the evening
perspiring in the breeze I broke fast.
Mumbling shokran at the waiter
as I pass him his tip in American dollars I realise
nothing. My hands are cut from coral, my arms
are unliftable and I realise nothing.