Riyadh, 2000 House that dreams it is a house and wakes up a villa, staring through mirrored glasses across the Persian Gulf. House with sand roses and cumin, water filters, screaming red fire ants. Their castles the first to go; like violence predicting its own arrival. House full of fire ants. I can call it an embassy and almost be telling the truth. The geckos operatic in the ceiling, the way the sand cat must have looked, her stomach spread across the warm patio tiles, her eyes pressed firmly shut. The house all heat, that heard the word “war� only when a child mispronounced it and stopped, forefinger stalled in the copy of Arab News until her father read it back to her. House that was a sun-spoke in a compound in the desert. One day a woman would draw the design from a satellite image, weld it into a charm for a hot bronze necklace and squinting, turn it over in her hand.
best in show poetry
52 | american literary magazine
Molly McGinnis