The dust flings itself up towards the sky
As the sky flings itself into a grave.
Dogs stand on hind legs, jaws gnaw in dumpsters
Smoke billows from chars of skewered meat, onions pale as knife-sliced moons,
Sidewalks watch with impassive, cracked faces, as grandfathers.
Holy thistle, crown daisy, goatgrass.
Dead boys wear sun-bleached keffiyehs on the walls of a stone city,
Their eyes turning scrap in the wind.
Kunafe drenches abandoned plates:
Archaeology of sugar, semolina, cheese white as a night of despair.
Children skitter past shoes left lonely outside the wide floors of faith
Where people kneel, press palms to earth, their hands writ with the 99 names of God.
Beneath, above them, mountains sprawl in sun.
Mary McColley is a writer and poet originally from Maine. She has wandered and worked for a number of years in France, Thailand, and Palestine. Her pastimes include killing lobsters and selling street art.
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