Our hearts are with you, Aleppo.
–Mo
Aleppo
Here at last, city of a million
Or a couple: sudden feeling of emptiness
And “that color must be the national—
How do you call it, in English?” Beige
Everywhere: the foreign hotel and border
Guards’ uniforms, the epaulettes, houses,
The skies a purple zero overhead
(Long day since the duty-free)
Night, the Christian Quarter blurts and blares
Fall in love as slowly as you can
Come down: mango juice in plastic chairs,
The great big plink of God on the terrace rail.
Her cigarette, still trailing embers,
Spinning past the neon minaret.
* * *
Unmap
After Pamukkale, wonder
Of rivulet-carved white
Mineral cascades, hot springs
And martyrion half-collapsed
Among bright poppies,
Morning cai and wet formica,
Ice cream in an everyday
Park, no monuments, Efes
At some upstairs blue-lit lounge,
Directions from children
And bright-painted leaning houses,
Back streets of Denizli
A dusty, prosaic place,
Jingoistic flag displays
We hadn’t planned to see
Where no one knew we’d gone.
Now you do.
Sat again in that small café
Waiting for the overnight, said
Strangely exhilarating and
Attendants hosed the coaches down,
Inexplicable ubiquitous
Cleansing. Showed each other pictures
Of each other climbing ruins
And each other drinking cai
There, mid-morning orange
Glass behind him now
Smeared red with brake light
Reflections behind her
Laughing no one knows we’ve been
Here. This disconnected glory haven’t
Really felt in years so
Now: give away the secret one
Time shared alone.
- * * *
Tombs in Lycia
On hidden heights, dark
Narrow slots where lords
Lay buried among splintered
Looted jars, blank
Black oblongs cut
In splotchy reddish cliffs
Up sandy paths from white
-walled friendly honking Kas:
Broad lintel and columns,
Porches for gulls, most
Visible from slow blue
Inlets, a rented boat:
Loopholes out of this
World that don’t beckon,
Glide by and will never make
One promise. Chambers
All care-carved entrance
And emptiness behind.
One, in town, was bolder. Stone
Small house with inscription
Hacked in cream to umber rock,
Pillar-balanced room, sharp
Roof with blunt-nosed dragons
Jutting out. A piebald cat
Mewed from the garbage bins
And someone read the plaque
Nearby in halting Turkish.
Stand on tip-toe: look
Through its window: borrow
Perspective on forever
Before infinity
Or zero: a four-walled void,
Solidity nothing
Demanded. But bore in
To hollow what resists
The Lycians replied. Chisel
Conquerings in stone. Build
Monuments from air the earth’s
Tough plenitude encloses.
Save what’s heaviest, hardest
To repurpose for the dead.
