I Remember Rasha

Baabdat, September 2013

When suddenly I thought of Rasha there,

between the jail walls and under

the stirring portraits of ladies

in handmade fantasy dresses,

each one from a different place,

foreigners all at home within

these locked-up boxes,

like mix-matched jewelry.

I thought of Rasha there

pulling the dark hairs

from her armpits, drawing out

her long Kurdish brows,

primping for the someone outside

who must be waiting, who sends

us coffee with sugar, for whom

she left her children back home

in Syria along the border.

I thought of Rasha and the way

corruptible people laugh,

inviting tramps and robbers

to suck them dry and move on

to the next home-wrecked

easy to please wife.

I thought of Rasha as she squatted

over the flat hole, eliminating

the insides of herself,

scrubbing her mons, her

heavy white thighs open

and plucking, plucking, plucking

for hours at a time

while we waited to urinate

until she emerged hairless

and smiling, see!  she says,

as if it were easy.

Her smile lit a thousand

dungeon lanterns until

the portraits on the jail walls

curtsied in the flickering

boiler-room light.