From the mountain, Jabal Qasiuon,

Above Damascus, God sees everything.

 

Not a hand over me, God says.

Sometimes he becomes Innana, Mistress of the Me.

 

His breasts swell at night with the lights of houses, asterisms

Scattered against the hill, a mirage of starry sky.

 

Below, on a rooftop in Yarmouk camp, a Palestinian boy

Washes his green and pink bicycle.

.

Down the broad traffic-choked avenue, the leaves of the trees

Recant all their summer promises.

 

The little rooms grow cold. Space heaters crackle to life.

 

A man in a shop smoothes velvet baby dresses

With his rough fingertips.

 

The Laurel leaves, elderberry,

And arbors of jasmine are virescent memories, suspended.

 

God sees everything over ash-Sham, which is the real name

For Damascus, the ones who know will tell you—

 

And farther still, farther God looks with her necklace of eyes,

To where the call to prayer overlaps with other calls

From other directions,

 

Farther than the call to prayer can reach, to where in a cell, a man

Has written poetry on a Styrofoam cup with his fingertips,

 

About paradise:

 

The roar of music there, unceasing—

 

The light’s execration—

 

The water, irremissible as it pours into breath—

 

 

© Heather Derr-Smith

from The Bride Minaret