Danger lurks they say in beat up yellow cabs whose drivers will teach western women to keep indoors during Ramadan or air raids in Iraq; insinuated into conversations like immature bombs, mostly sound, not much fireworks, set off by any light, unexpected despite constant warnings translating fear considered different from crossing the street as cars aim indiscriminately, or taking the darkest streets turned like batter, sand and rocks brought to the surface, piles of rubble where there aren’t pools of week-old rain lying in wait as splashed sentences, rumors of concern offering disguises: pawns as queens, or kings negotiating familiar routes in another language, political games and street games, in any case, men in control, threatening or protecting. Regardless of intention, the leavings of words remain, a conspiratorial gang taking on naïfs and suspect grand illusions.
Swimming to Syria 33
