As waves pillage the coastal towns,
and refugees cling to their roofs,
I want my now to ask your then
what all that noise was about,
and what I should do
with your taut swimsuit nipples
that sometimes cross my mind,
and how to resolve our laughter
when we woke the next morning
tangled in the same sheets.
As the desert creeps toward the pines,
and the cattle winnow to skin and bone,
I want more than inconsequent sunsets,
than to think that we saw them and died:
the light in your hair, framed
by the window, or the quiet music
you plucked from the strings as we
waited for something to grow
out of winter. As the buildings collapse
into dust, and the cars on the street
are traded for food, I want my pulse
to have fallen like footsteps
in the old city’s hollow, as if
there were someone to account
for all gestures and failures,
attempts at the tiniest miracle
--what you must have looked like
at two in the morning, standing
at a payphone twisting the cord,
I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
while around you traffic churned,
stars burned, neon pretended forever.
Painting Courtesy of Our Featured Artist Fahed Mohammed Shehab
