Amman sprawls, sun-struck, on seven 

hills, like a latter-day Rome, only 

less so. It was, in fact, once Roman, 

as the ruined theater downtown attests, 

but today the grown children of sheikhs 

drive herds of camel-colored 

Mercedes down the steep wadis. 

These castoffs of the rich Gulf nations 

bellow in the narrow streets of the souk, 

where the voices of gold and silver 

merchants buzz in their beehive shops. 

The cries of muezzins from a dozen mosques 

buzz likewise on the outer hills, 

blunting their stings against the double-

glazing of the wealthy. A water peddler 

hawks the sweat of his brow in a neighborhood 

frosted with roses. How wild, how strange 

it all seems, as exotic as a rose 

thrown in the face of a thirsty man.