In the old city of Ibb, where clay towers kiss stars whose sockets sailed
argonauts, guiding magis and kings and wondrous creatures alike,

Lies a bitterness and a beauty. Petrol fumes and cheap colognes, cityscape
of ashen walls and blank silhouettes on lighted dirt,

Rays beaming through wired glass, a multiplicity of haggard souls in
strange poses, waiting for whatever care.

I can’t recall the doctors face but his saddle bridge was crooked and he
made me cry, but I got to ride the footboard of uncles jeep.

A bucking bull on fallow for a shorter route, while I traded sights with
cousin, and I could have swore he lied once or twice,

And I closed my eyes and imagined veering off some great promontory and
flying, and I still feel the wind rushing.

I sat under the gutter awnings, feeding watermelon rinds to cows in the
early hours when morning mist made the light nebulous and its source
conjectural,

And I recall some kind of cheese and a sense of sonder at the age of three.
And termites.

We’d pound the Earth, the false rainmakers we were, and chthonic spawns
would fly out, trap ‘em in old tins and fry them.

Try one, spit it out when mom’s not looking and resign myself to cabinet
treats and “I have homework” and “is it Maghreb yet?”

And the day came and no sooner did cousin audit my marble collection,
while I slinked the adobe eave and whipped the bushes,

And I gave something to her, and I still feel the betrayal, and I don’t know
how she betrayed me, but I left Yemen bitter,

Like some backpocket memory attrited by whatever new sights and sounds
could attest to the horrors of America.

O’ what blonde minx will swindle you! What alchemical drug will they
pump you with! What values will they wash away!

But all that washed away was petrichor and blind love and a willingness to
give myself away. Traded for risk, romance, and the freedom to suffer.

And in the freedom I suffered, I grew. And my heart grew. And eventually, I
grew to learn that I do give myself, but in pieces.

A constellation of ignited souls across a great big other, sparked by a
disembittered child.

I’ll let those memories wash over me and maybe the bitterness was never
there and maybe one day, when I return to her,

I won’t return to bitterness, but to grace. And I’ll share with her that
beauty. And that child will be a man.