Passage 18

Dust and frenetic traffic cloud my calm.

I exchange them for al-Azhar’s green calm.

 

The Park’s public avenues woo my love

and squire her past fountain-spurting calm.

 

I’d like to swap the friendship- yellow blooms

and constantly water love’s desert calm.

 

Your misunderstanding, perhaps my slight–

I can engineer a truce-brokered calm.

 

After Egyptian dessert, I read grounds

in your demitasse—your life will be calm.

 

The sandstorm passed, our lives covered with grit.

I need to secure a glistening calm.

 

In cool, shaded areas, takhtaboush,

orchard’s archways, I plant an ardent calm.

 

Feeling used, forlorn, taken for granted,

you scorn the pyramids’ eternal calm.

 

We excavate our pasts like the Ayyubid wall,

build up our future in a solid calm.

 

Al-Azhar’s lights die down as Majnun holds

your head after our lovemaking calm.