today's events

In those dark and humorless corridors of power, I met you today.  You were beautiful.  You had just emerged from your swim, and over the corpse of a bluebottle or a blue shrimp, we spoke briefly, and agreed.  People raced motorcycles, and nearly ran us over.  The waves crashed to the dancing feet of a four year old.  Wrapped in an orange towel, there were shivers and quivers, and the slow after effects of cough syrup.  And yet, the air was viscous in those crumbling towers of power.  The men were lethargic from their endless chases of paper and golf balls. Banging prayer mats and gulping shots of vodka. The women were weary from the poisons in their skin; they fretted about bombs and ballet, and laughed.  When did girls become women and straighten their hair, and design huts made of rock and S. Abdullah? Lips luscious, skins taut, faces no longer able to even pretend.  Hostility.  You seem less pretty now with the sun in your eyes, and your necks melting.  You look not like the angel you once were.  Your child is eating sand.  She is slinging mud.  She is atop a white horse, and is awkward.  A six year old antagonist in a sleeping beauty swimsuit.   You scoop meatballs intently.  There is a tanginess in the chicken today.  A teenager mesmerized by the baboon's somersaults and the crass humor of the man over beast.   You eat dates from Mecca and Medina.   You eat pinenut desserts from Lebanon..

There is salt in my contact lenses.  The four year old wears a bindi of sand. The shivers.

A boy atop a public bus raises his arms and actions a throw with a ball.  He is Nepali, and wears a soccer uniform. A monkey showman approaches inspired by the excesses of philanthropists. Gluttonous.  A servility as if things were in order. In whispers and hushes, to the sound of waves.  There are hordes of people out today.  Some are throwing up in the sea.  Some are not even listening to the sound of metal.  I feel nostalgic for change.