In the Hamam

Sitting in the hamam
I watch the dead skin peel off
Until it covers my arms,
My legs, torso.

Other youths skylark around,
Throwing plastic cups and water
But, like in a daydream, the
Steam devours me.

Love Poem I

Will I write a love poem?
It is not easy and I have not written one before.

Yet, perhaps the sea,
truly aquamarine blue, even effervescent
in this city inspires me to admit how much
I love you.

The sound of your voice,
Your lips,
Your coarse black hair,
The tiny hairs that cover your body.
The curly, wiry hair in that place below.

Yes, a love poem this shall be,
from Beirut,
with love...

Old Sana'a

Sometimes I am a prisoner of my body, of my mind.
I carry my history around,
heavier and heavier,
like a washerwoman's bundle around my shoulders,
Garments.
Some beautiful, to be sure.
Others dirty and barely wearible.
One day my load shall become too heavy
and I shall sit down and die.
I thought I would die yesterday,
when the crazy big steel bird I was riding in
came in for a bad landing and then
SWOOPED up again,
even when we touched down (finally)
it was uneven;
Praying that I would be given time
to repent of the things I've done
(the things I've done with you).
And now I sit on the rooftop
smelling the faint shades of cardomun,
watching the birds and the minarets,
and the mountains which are
carelessly sculpted by erosion.

I search for release,
Which I find only in your arms.

Last Night's Story

I observed him in the crowd,
coming towards me,
much more pleasurable to look at than the others.
Who says that true love doesn't exist?

We eat. And then we do other things and
I am left feeling cleaner, by the end,
than I was at the start of the evening;
Perhaps for the first time, in a long time.
Washed clean again, no wonder we said we felt no shame!

How could we?

echo

It is true, your echo still remains

still

what is an echo?
a memory? feelings for a memory?

memory, sweet

A Verse from Cavafy

I searched in vain to find a verse,
From Cavafy, to speed his journey.
I imagine his back,
No doubt sweating underneath his shirt
Against the vinyl covered seat of a
Cairo taxi.

On the way to his dance class,
Unbroken almost fearful silence.

Here his echo still remains,
Tatty cushions tossed around like flotsam
Litter the living room floor,
The scene of our last love-making.

Tender kisses that I still feel on my fingertips,
his sad good bye.

The Old Photograph

What am I?
And
Where is that boy,
standing on the beach,
shyly looking away from the camera
with a cuttlefish skeleton in his small hands.
Eight years old, hair bleached white and
skin as brown as an Egyptian!

He, I, remember the moment,
the wind in his hair, surly grey sea.
Stood on another beach now,
thousands of miles away.
The same, yet transformed;
Hair darker, hands bigger,
He's not changed,
But I'm not the same.