Tripoli rooftop. Morning came and the sun was out
and still, nothing. Maybe his Saudi friends heard wrong.
He squinted into the light, its round hive heaving
in the humid air. The sea lipped its insoluble gossip
to the shoreline. He tilted his cheek seaward,
the scuffle rippling back to him in radio waves.
How many hours had the town gone neon
under his eyelids, had he swayed at the edge
of the building, its narrow lane laddered
with clotheslines? He could wait for something
to stop him or he could take one step into air,
the scarves like kites sailing up from his hand
as he dropped through. How easily he could
be counted among the missing. Neighbors
and friends herded by Al-Tawhid fighters
and dumped into the Mediterranean.
Waves rolling over the bodies to wake them.
The wind swung and he swept his foot back.
If you want to live, then live, he once heard
someone say, but what did they know?
The sky was a jar full of loose teeth. A canyon
ripped wide, echoes calling ledge to ledge:
Tawhid fire. Syrian answer.
Tracer bullets like the bright ribcage under night’s dark skin.
Welts of shellfire. Red trench-light. Through his arms,
he saw blades of smoke, their messy work—
what his home looked like as fishbone.
Bio:
Ruth Awad