Thinking

Kasr Avenue was where the birds lived,

In a mud silo millet seeds flourished

All winter long and through the dry season

Laila was in my soul, also Majnoo’s madness.

I was a girl growing up and you, crossing the

Nile—yes a flat boat is all you had—

Came in, trousers wet and flapping,

Sat down with your back to me.

Hunayn ibn Ishaq - the great physician

Thought of the heart as the oven of the body.

In the Grand Hotel the waiters wear

Cummerbunds, always maroon, over tunics, white

I asked for a lemonade with crushed ice.

Majnoo lived with his goats in the desert north of here

On a mountain of sand, where the sky turns dark

The color of millet burnt in a stone oven.