The Morning After

The sabra man looks naked,
black eyes and white smile,
strong shoulders and chest. He slices
the desert fruit and holds out his palm:
sabra, red queen on her prickly skin,
against his darker flesh. I pluck
it from his palm, swallow it whole:
cold, sharp, so sweet I ache, and turn back,
glance at him. Laughing, he slices another
and holds out his fruited hand.

Doors blow open and reveal hidden
numbers, Hebrew-raw and wailing-scrolls
across the sky. I walk down Allenby past the blue
bookstore, old men selling flowered dresses,
the shuk ripe with purple figs and curved eggplants,
vast stalks of mint leaves, luisa, kzboor.
Past the grinning pimp outside the hotel.
All roads lead to the sea, even the street
of the whores, or the children, or soldiers.

In Jaffa I climb stone steps that wind till they
die, listen to bells ring, smell Iraqui bread
soft and flat baking under sun. A woman swings
a dead chicken at me, a man says: marry my son,
a good boy, you could do worse. I could do
worse than be here, in this land
where stones wail, where
the beast howls at the city gate, and the sea
dazzles like blue glass-but warm as my lover's arms,
as the taste of the flowers that grows wild.
Poisonous, I heard-but can't believe it, no,
not you, dizzying pink. I bite the petals
down to your heart: the night was so long,
and I am so hungry.
-Ruth Knafo Setton