This morning along
the corniche
I hear the arkasus
seller, clinking
two brass plates
together,
hawking licorice
juice.
The zils clack open
& shut like clams,
big as saucers in
his right hand:
dum dum tekka, dum
tekka dum.
Inside the giant
glass pitcher
harnessed across his
shoulder
black liquid, a
pressing of root,
sloshes and roils,
foams at the top.
Two boys spearfish
from a blue boat.
On a wall painting,
similar fish is strung
through the mouth,
hung in bunches
from a pole another
boy carries
across his
shoulders. His fellow slave
has caught ducks;
clutched by their
wing feathers their
feet skid up.
He settles them near
bundled dates,
black as grapes in
this painting.
Pomegranates cluster
in baskets;
lotus stems coil,
root bulbs like big eggs.
Shopkeepers place
clay amphora
on curbs here-anyone
can drink
their water. When I cut lotus root,
its hollows slice
into flower stencils,
rounds patterned
like punctured clay sieves
set in the necks of
those terra cotta bottles.
Pomegranates,
prescribed for the heart,
appear as dried
rinds piled in burlap
sacks in the spice
shops. Fresh ones sit
in rows on a
cart, juicy beads of seed
sink into liquid the
sun heats up; urns
fill with a crushed
red like sacrament.
As I step into the
elevator, a boy carries on
pigeons cupped in
each palm. He gestures
with them, trapped
in his hands. Mr. Mahmoud
keeps them on the
roof so his messages
fly down the Nile,
all the way to Aswan.
Late in the day,
flame trees shake flowers
onto tables, red as
dried hibiscus in tea
I sip. People nod, gesture, smile, skin coppery
as pigment in the
tomb paintings, the men's
chests bare, poised
with spears. Fish
nose in thickets of
roots; ducks fly up.
Nearby, a pool
floats lavender lilies with egg
yolk centers. Small birds hop on flat green
leaves, dip beaks
and shuffle their wings.
Flies quiver and
settle in their tendrils.
No, tiny bees the
size of flies.
First published in The
Southern Review