the yasmine's return
Jasmine petals pierced
and strung into wreaths, slipped
over curls undamaged, lively
like youth spent in concrete
balconies with dense rice pudding,
midnight tea layering onto
our tongues that uttered
nothing but naivete
Noisy weddings, machete’d brawls and vibrant funerals
watched through the erratic slits
made by billowing damp laundry
pinned to drooping clotheslines,
The tree in giddo’s balcony
sprouted gradient petals
for decades before the revolution
then slept for the two years
of devastation that ensued
after our “liberation”
just like my grandfather did,
giddo’s still asleep
A tangerine shadher propped up
on bricks littered, balconies neglected
as I slept through migraines
of undefined anxiety,
The cloth walls matched the cores
of a single yasmine forcing through
the day the mother
who lived above the bakery
died—
First blossom of the year.
Her scent will stay with the street,
the bakery breathes floral mists
of her departure and
the return of the yasmine.
—
naira badawi
street cats and forgetfulness
Gray street cat squeezed itself
between my lifelong friend and I
seated on damp stones searching
for “three stars” in the deepening night
Cat shook in unrelenting Mediterranean mists—
sharp bones poking through sticky fur
resident of a Mamluk’s citadel by the sand
he purred for the first time
sleeping on iodized palms—
If I had my own home
I would share mine with him,
but he clung on when I tried
to set him down
by the intricate mural of beautified falsehood
Gaze boring into my being,
he turned, a sallow 6 month baby,
and crawled under a wooden cart
selling plastic shells by our Sea,
Gone alone and hungry
as he came
I am detached from this poverty
stray cats and discarded children
embedded in the motif
designed by hideous men
who left my civilization to rot
for thirty years
—Lose sleep over stray cats
Lose faith over forsaken children—
Neina told me He never forgets
any of us,
not the ants, not the grains of sand,
yet I cannot let it go that easily,
He is here
and they will be protected somehow
but how can I let myself forget
after my Summer soujourn?
Only a sojourn.
I am not forced to endure this
like they are,
I have a tiny blue book
that grants me escape.
If my family wasn’t from Ragheb
where pastel balconies cradle
polyester garments dripping
onto the balding heads of
unemployed men, uneducated children,
If my roots weren’t still planted
in the soil by the battered Mahmoudeyya,
maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult
to see my Alexandria ailing, rotten,
Forgotten.
We were the only ones who escaped the poverty,
the rest of my family, my people
are still here
and sometimes when we leave
we forget them
and the struggles we left behind.
—
naira badawi
Single red top hung
from a green clothesline
wicker baskets dangled
from cement balconies
to unpaved streets
little Nubian boy carries
a Persian kitten on his shoulder,
passes by a crumbly coffeeshop
packed with men who sat
on 3-legged chairs
under dripping pastel laundry
ripping against a violent breeze polluted,
fresh falafel flipped
with callous fingertips,
apples sunset orange geometry
on wooden wheelbarrows
More revolutions than the country
has seen
—
naira badawi
