Tamer's home (cont.)

We enjoy fatta, tea, okra, and omm ali

Fateera, ishta, and ghee                                     

In the outdoor café at                                         

Night we sip tea, watch people                          

smoke hookah, and surrender                           

to the singer’s angelic                             

voice making love with the oud             

Coffin-sized elevators                          

in a one star hotel, one                         

with a smoking escort and                                

chair and the other playing                                

the call to prayer                                              

Annoying guides and bumpy                             

Horseback rides dancing around the                 

Pyramids, followed by                         

a violent bidet and the                          

stench of wet horse as I play dress                   

up in Khan El-Khalili’s                         

Egyptian dance finery                                       

Sufi skirts spinning like rainbow                        

Tops enchanted by drumming                           

Nubians in the ancient mosque             

Hunting down Egyptian stars                            

in five-star Samiramees                                    

We get high on infectious                                 

pop and seduced by Dina’s                              

shimmies, then finally we                                  

Collapse in our beloved                                   

one-star Nitocrises                                          

Bright as the African sun                                  

Your love and affection for                               

Egypt finally clear to me                                   

It is her who I now see                         

In your smile, your eyes and your                     

tenderest of memories