Homs

Burro Foreground, Golan Heights

Someone else would write about people, shooting them as the Lebanese photographer whose black and white peasants look familiar as cinema verité with a small gray burro I could imagine riding easily as thought until I climbed on and discovered rope that doesn’t rein, a seat that’s no saddle for legs hugging furry ribs. A boy holds my thighs down as he leads me in slow circles, bumping along before the citadel viewed by buses bringing tourists to gawk, not far from a photo show where the Golan Heights appear wasted and poverty stares back at voyeurs now watching an American riding a boy’s burro outside the frame of expectation.