Please note: Poetry is compressed to fit smart phone screens. If you are reading this poem on a phone screen, please turn your screen sideways to make sure that you are seeing correct line breaks for the poem.
The loudspeaker calling to sunset Maghrib prayer
carries through the sluice
of cardamom Cairo air
into the waterless, sandy dusk
filled with cars that speak their resolve.
I pray our ’82 Lada Zhiguli taxi
will make it to the hotel in Gezira,
memories of the last taxi ride break down
in Tahrir Square still fresh.
I can taste that pizza chased with iced karkadé tea
in Maison Thomas Pizza, under the flyover near the Marriott,
where the restaurant servers could not stop
touching Burt’s 3-year-old daughter’s blonde hair,
a shade they had never seen before.
After, we walk over to the hotel
and sip cold limones in the verdant garden bar
at the back.
Filled with stories.
Here’s the thing:
This poem is filled with vaporous nostalgia for
a Peace Corps style of working and living,
long forgotten by most.
Yet, perhaps this was my favorite life.
Fred Tudiver holds a BSc from McGill University, and an MD from Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is a new poet and likes to explore the human condition and the natural world. He has published in Black Moon magazine, Tennessee Voices Anthology, and the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
THE CITY KEY 