September 4, 2001
An uncomfortably warm fall day. I peer into the courtyard of the old
mosque from my window three floors above. The young mother with the turquoise scarf pulled tight across her head
scoops the water into her palms, then tenderly lets it fall into the mouth of her son below. I watch his jaw,
imagining the liquid as it passes into his throat, and down. How did it feel five years ago, I wonder, when the woman's mother
merely wet the inner lining of her cheeks? |
Was it enough for her daughter to forget her thirst? A tall businessman
in an Italian suit looks left, then right, perhaps ashamed I think, bends over, awkwardly you know, like he's wincing
with an old back injury, takes a gulp of water without wetting his hands, then quickly scoots along---the white rabbit
with a somewhere called nowhere to go. More water continues to form a liquid arch that soars up, then dives down onto
the polished cobblestones below. |
