Surviving//Skin
In America, I imagine Noah after the flood; see his old hands burrow
into the land, the lost parent finds his child. Dalida and Fairuz and Imam all sing
of the land, but I know not the difference between soil and skin. Still, I swallow whole
that which does not love me. In New Cairo, I lose God. In Old Cairo, I pray to concrete and hanging wood. My mother texts me.
Today, it is 41 degrees Celsius in all of Cairo. I ignore white people who try to explain Fahrenheit.
Connecticut makes me grateful for the weather back home. I am puzzled
by New England architecture. I have no windows to pray to. February in this country
numbs my fingers, makes me forgot where my blood flows. I spit extra hard
at the ground when it’s snowing and I’m smoking just to spite whiteness itself. I’m still around. I can leave
a mark. Even as I kill myself I am still surviving you.
