At the Gates, Mikhail Makes Me a Feast of Rain and Dirt

to hold me. I have feared open

roads; the seduction of

the unfathomable. All my life

I sit before him alone.

He asks me about my kin

and country. I say: I am

something. I don’t pretend

to know where ‘we’ live. If there

is a place for ‘us’ I have

found sirens, restless screeching;

choir of dust, shriveled lotus

by an empty bank. Maybe

for a mother, and I am tired

of the violence of water;

how it holds the still land

to wash of blood and

kerosene. Cut off my tongue

if I claim I know what it

underneath a thick blanket.

I know I too am guilty

of this legacy. I have praised

for every nightingale

who sang too loud. And for that you

can call my mouth rotten, but

gave me, and I speak it well,

let it overflow from my open

mouth unto the tired

a home out of our teeth. But

find me a history that

has ever undone ‘us’ and

the dark. I say: God gifts us

the night, and for that I am

eternally grateful. There

have settled for that music

which shakes the stillness. I have

mocked martyrdom’s allure, I am

my quiet hands. They only

want to build.

About the Author

Hazem Fahmy

Pushcart-nominated poet and critic from Cairo.