Medina Poem by Fiona Wright

The city walled. The house have plain clay faces.
These streets have not been mapped.
The stooped doors force a downcast head.

Cats crawl past automatic pigeon-pluckers.
You are not here,
and black-fingered men beat metal
into dishes held between their bent, bare feet,
and children frisk wasps
from sticky green sweets.

Wet leather drips dye
down glistened backs of couriers,
and bulb-faced women stuff webby pastries
with pickled fat and capsicum.

You are not here, the button-weavers sing.
Je t'aime, Je t'aime the thin boys grin
pressing their legs on their wall-top perches.

You rest beneath the broken waterclock,
the empty belfries echoing the donkey carter's cry:
Ballack! Ballack! Step back!
The call to prayer curls out
from the carved walls of the madrasa —
You are not here.