Your name, the caress of shadows on a white, stone wall
falls heavy in my ear.
It shatters on my drum and I hear the muezzin’s cry in the distance.
Your eyes, two lit candles in dark windows, hypnotize me until all I see
Are the sweet orange groves of your promises
—never the bitterness of the fallen fruits.
Your wind, a long-fingered hand in my hair, carries cardamom and a hot musk
through me until all I can do is quake.
I walked a month in your fragrant streets,
tasting the spiced air and always believing I would find the feast.
But, though I fainted with hunger,
though I searched your scorched streets and touched every wall in hope,
All you gave me, were those bitter windfalls and the echo of a shouted prayer.
