"Waiting" by Shaukat Mulla

In this city where men and women
exchange passions in secret;
in the middle of the month of Ramadan,
the month of fasting and feasting,
of the body's hegemony,
I went to meet my lover
at the conclusive hour,
when the day completes its last fable
and solar force gives way
to lunar stratagem
and the breeze feels
like it has touched the river
and the plea of the muezzin
and the blast of the cannon
grant us a break
from pleasing the Lord
and proclaim this world as ours;
when the gatekeeper of her building
fastens his eyes
on the bread spread with blessings
fastens them on the dates,
dark and potent, like coffee,
reassuring as the oasis--then
I slipped through the gate
straight to her doorbell,
my hunger in full flower
and she opened the door,
tender from the wait.

BIO: Sharif S. Elmusa poet, scholar and translator is currently the director of Middle East Studies Program and an associate professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. He teaches the politics of the environment as well as a course on the Nile River. He is the co-editor with Greg Orfalea of Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab-American Poetry (first published in 1987 by the University of Utah Press then reprinted by Interlink Books, 1999.)

His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Poetry East, the Christian Science Monitor, Banipal and Poetry Ireland Review. A "Special Feature" of his poems appeared in Ruah. His work also can be found in a number of anthologies, including in The Space Between Our Footsteps, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye. His translations of Arabic poetry have been included in many magazines and anthologies. Email: selmusa@aol.com