My
father-in-law goes to bed, sleeps with his wife, gets up, takes a bath and prays
God for Paradise. That's God's law and the Prophet's: an unquenchable
river of kisses, houri dreams like a snake wriggling between his thighs, a
neatly drained putz his idea of fun in bed, plowing woman to harvest children.
My husband worships the randy flea too, he's usually to be found stuffing dinars
into wrappers to buy a second wife. As for me I wear a scar on my
buccaneer's brow while I sail the wind every which where; wife to exile, my
people dead or dying, my children lamps in the windows of my storm-moved house.
My country? My country! sliver moon of sorrow, my mother's dead body wandering
in the hills, wind stands frozen by her grave.