ABZ Press

Lost

Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar

Pretend you speak only one language, the swirl

of vowels, edge of consonants around you

cacophony. Thousands of miles away,

home. Familiar syllables float in air heavy

with sweat. Four thousand shops along labyrinthine

alleys and your group evaporates into the crowd

like cigarette smoke. Men shout hookahs! kilims!

words lost in your ear. “Come in for tea” pulls

at your full purse. Salesmen seem the same:

brown slacks, white button-downs, dimpled grins.

They want you, or appear to, eyes boring

into your body. The rush only happens twice.

One praises a hookah with its limp pipe curling

over a glass tube like the neck of an alien bird.

You don’t smoke. You find yourself haggling.

Next a gold chain two centimeters thick, platinum

set with emeralds, amethysts. Something more

reasonably priced? Daisy-shaped moonstones.

Turn the corner or veer left and find another display

of boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl or painted

with soldiers on horseback, spears uplifted.

A moustached man promises a deal on a yellow leather

jacket if you don’t want a box.  Suddenly you do,

selecting a set of ceramic tiles and organza

embroidered with butterflies as souvenirs. You eye

a carpet woven in Bergama—hand-dyed with madder,

chamomile, indigo. You suggest half on his price.

He laughs. Unbuttoning your shirt a notch

knocks off a million lira—ten bucks. His assistant

runs for a bigger shopping bag, but it’s time.

You imagine your group standing on the ferry,

your name on their lips. You depart empty-handed,

the taste of tea leaves on your tongue.  

Baptism

Tarsus

We are offerings

this time. Unwrapped

under a stone dome,

our glossed bodies

on heated marble,

sheets hewn by hands

two-thousand years ago.

Veils of steam over

lips, noses, eyes—

our prayers vapor

pressing an oval skylight

the width of a face.

Two women emerge,

mauve slips cellophane

swathing wide buttocks

and stomachs, brown areolas

pressed flowers. Baskets

of cloths and soap sway

from reddened hands.

These women wash us,

scrub with rough sponges

from back to ankle until

skin is pink and supple,

smooth polished stone.

Praise Song

Maşallah! Praise the woman napping with her goats on grass sprinkled

with white buds, and praise the grandmother washing clothes

in a sarcophagus, brown chickens pecking near her sandaled feet

Praise Plancia Magna, priestess of the mother of gods, for adorning

Perge’s agora with art, and praise Anatolia’s cycle of holy women:

Cybele, Artemis, Mary

Praise the everyday women of Mersin replaced by villagers and bikinied

blondes in the English guidebook to their province, and praise the women

of Konya cloistered in homes

Maşallah! Praise teens in tight jeans, how they kick out their hips

as they stand, and praise workers of Translation Alley who “speak”

so well their clients marry them 

Praise the Air Force’s line of Ford trucks and their red-haired drivers

Praise students who wear wigs to college classes and once outside,

don headscarves, and praise raincoated mothers striding to market

on sunny mornings, toddlers decorating their skirts

Praise the sisters sitting at the fountain in Bursa’s silk bazaar, parcels

of fabric bundled before their feet, hair the color of leaves still holding

on, burnt red against white sky

Maşallah! Praise the bakers of baklava.