Aleppo Bus

In Serjilla

The year’s last day blurry as the film where fog filled my camera, leaving memory a month later to rearrange as old limestone, moved when needed. The donkey tethered to the column awaits his load of Roman stone, and I carry mine back with me. The hillside is slick with long rains, making me drop small rocks here and there, irretrievable. Someone lives in the old walls— steam rises. Everything gray, except the laundry I try to recall, something red, a black rubber floormat hung on the perimeter between the dead and the donkey. I wore nothing I can remember, naked in recollection, but I dress myself in something warm, like the burning that can’t be seen producing smoke. And I track mud, thick in the grooves of my boots, the cuffs of my jeans. I try to shake it off before leaving, but it sticks more stubbornly than these Byzantine foundations unmoved for the time being.