The sun rises pink.
Standing over the ghaliyet ahwe,
past the stainless-steel sink,
looking through the window,
it hides behind a worn grey sheet.
I am waiting for the coffee to foam fragrant.
Pouring it into a ceramic blue and white fanjan.
I sip alone, phone in hand,
watching journalist, Wizard Bisan, visit a Teta in a tent.
Together, they laugh and sip from paper cups,
where the sun rises a Yafa orange.
The cat rises happy.
Cradling purr to chest, earthy scent
slows my rattling heart to a hum.
Squeezing from my arms,
four paws thump together on wood,
meowing at the white cupboard
where his biscuits are kept.
I am pouring them into his bowl,
thinking of Mohammed, a boy clutching his fluffy cat, Lulu,
insisting to the camera, A soul? She has one.
where the cats rise and die in paradise.
The girls rise in a whirlwind.
Yelling I can’t find my hairbrush!
Shrieking Can you butter my toast?
The coffee cold in my cup,
I am rushing between kitchen, bathroom, bedroom,
towards the 8:30 school bell,
planting a kiss on each doughy cheek
risen fresh under the warm sun.
I pray they don’t see Mariam Dagga, sobbing over her sister,
I wish it was me who died and not you,
where the girls rise in blood, dust and tears.
The husband rises last.
And misses the bubbling coffee,
the hairbrush search, the buttered toast.
My stomach a red-hot stove.
He burns a kiss on my cheek,
I’m sorry,
like coffee sediment in the sink.
I am tired of tending the everyday,
reading of men like Yasser Abu Shamala,
grasping for family under crushed concrete,
where the husbands rise in rubble and resistance.
The sun rises a Yafa orange.
We gather by the fountain,
in the navel of the city.
Only the cat left at home.
We are sharing coffee and shattered hearts,
with friends whose names we learn while
marching down the street,
shouting together.
Medicine for the sickness of silence.
With Bisan, Mariam, Yasser, Mohammed and his cat, Lulu,
our love a rising zaghareet for
where the sun rises a Yafa orange.
