a thread, yoyo, a dream

He careens around pot-hole-ridden corners:
desperate for one more trip -
ten pounds tanni.
His poverty is reckless -
gutted van and soul.
A makeshift door-latch
barely contains
the revolving sardine-can
and not his anger -
Don’t get too f***ing close!
He could care less
if pedestrians are forced to scatter in his wake.
It is autumn in Cairo and all feel his chill.
Eyes well up as we tear down the road.

I too am hanging by a thread today.
A spider’s web of hope,
carefully woven while abroad,
is ripping apart one strand at a time.
Yoyo, yella, and here we go.
“This being human is a guest house…”


An oasis arises from the desert,
sweet Fayoum, with salty shores and
mystic sky
below desert of sky.
Where smiling sunflowers poke through cornfields in peaceful nonconformity,
and people play with clay like home,
being beautiful difference in the world.
If only this place could knit him together
(I feel my web re-spinning before my heart)
to face another week.
But he cannot afford this luxury
and he knows it.

One thread is left asunder
(and we are not yet on the road).