Cairo’s taxi
drivers speak to me in English.
I answer, and
they say your Arabic is good.
How long have
you been with us? All my life
I tell them, but
I’m never believed.
They speak to me
in Farsi, speak to me in Greek,
and I answer
with mountains of gold and silver,
ghost ships
sailing the weed-choked seas.
And when they
speak to me in Spanish,
I say Moriscos
and Alhambra.
I say Jews
rescued by Ottoman boats.
And when the
speak to me in Portuguese,
all my life I
tell them, coffee, cocoa,
Indians and
poisoned spears.
I say Afonsso
king of Bikongo writing
Manuel to free
his enslaved sons.
And Cairo’s taxi
drivers tell me
your Arabic is
surprisingly good.
Then they speak
to me in Italian,
and I tell them
how I lay swaddled
a month’s walk
from here. I tell them
camps in the
desert, barbed wire, wives
and daughters
dying, camels frothing disease,
the sand
stretching an endless pool.
And they say so
good so good.
How long have
you been with us?
All my life, but
I’m never believed.
Then they speak
to me in French,
and I answer
Jamila, Leopold, Stanley,
baskets of
severed hands and feet.
I say the
horror, battles of Algiers.
And they speak
to me in English
and I say
Lucknow, Arbenz. I say indigo,
Hiroshima,
continents soaked in tea.
I play the drum
beat of stamps. I invoke
Mrs. Cummings,
U.S. consul in Athens,
I say Ishi,
Custer, Wounded Knee.
And Cairo's taxi
drivers tell me
your Arabic is
unbelievably good.
Tell the truth
now, tell the truth,
how long have
you been with us?
I say my first
name is little lion,
my last name is
broken branch.
I sing
"Happiness uncontainable"
and "field
greening in March"
until I'm sad
and tired of truth,
and as usual I'm
never believed.
Then they lead
me through congestion,
gritty air,
narrow streets crowded with
Pepsi and Daewoo
and the sunken faces
of the poor. And
when we arrive, Cairo's
taxi drivers and
I speak all the languages
of the world,
and we argue and argue about
corruption,
disillusionment, the missed chances,
the wicked
binds, the cataclysmic fares.
Khaled Mattawa, "Echo & Elixir 2" from Zodiac of Echoes. Copyright © 2003 by Khaled Mattawa. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Source: Zodiac of Echoes (Copper Canyon Press, 2003)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/khaled-mattawa
image : Nadia Kaabi-Linke -- Impressions of Cairo (2010)