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We ate labneh and bread in your tents When we had no water we drew it from your well Your camels carried the sand to build our houses you built them—your hands— Fig-tree prickly-pear human-flood You were the wasteland we made bloom
Copyright © 2011 by Elana Bell. Used by permission of the author.
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To hold the bird and not to crush her, that is the secret. Sand turned too quickly to cement and who cares if the builders lose their arms? The musk of smoldered rats on sticks that trailed their tails through tunnels underground. Trickster of light, I walk your cobbled alleys all night long and drink your salt. City of bones, I return to you with dust on my tongue. Return to your ruined temple, your spirit of revolt. Return to you, the ache at the center of the world.