you want to talk desert sands and oil wells
sing songs of whirling dervishes and save somebody’s baby
from my rabid                    mad                    scimitar
do you even know what a dervish is?  
      how ‘bout a scimitar?
you think I got one hangin’ on my wall at home
right next to the blasting caps and C-4?

let’s talk hard concrete and hot asphalt
hard and hot
like your eyes watchin’ me from the corner
flashing white as they jerk away
then comin’ back to check, you don’t really expect,
but they tell you to be suspicious          to report things 
different
I’m not different
until you make me different in your head
and see desert under my feet instead of this 
street I’m walkin’ on
your street
a street I’m invading with my presence
with my dark skin
and kufia
and feet in sandals

​

you shrink a little when I walk up
I’m dangerous                    explosive
like Acme dynamite in the hands of Wylie E. Coyote
I see you lookin’ at my chest as if you could spot the bulge of a suicide vest
but there’s nothing
because I’m just standing here on this street corner, waiting for the light to change and we’ll walk across this street together like two people livin’ in the same city together
and I’ll go my way and you’ll go yours 
and we’ll never touch again
east is east and all that shit.

I wish
does it matter what I wish?
I wish you heard the music in the muezzins’ call
and felt the spirit of God when you heard me speak “Allahu Akbar”
instead of the whine of hate and a plane exploding into the side of a tower
I’d hold out my hand if you would take it
I’d invite you over to my house
and feed you cucumbers from my garden 
and spicy kafta with Labneh 
I’d teach you how to drink our coffee 
and tell your fortune in the grounds
we could pray together
facing Mecca
the name of God the same on our lips no matter what language we speak

I wish
but it doesn’t matter what I wish
because we’ve crossed the street now
and you’ve turned away
tonight 
you’ll think of me tonight when the news is on
and they show my kind with blood running down and list the day’s toll of death
shudder maybe and count yourself lucky that you live here
where streets don’t explode
and you can walk across the street
alive
even beside a terrorist

​

that’s what I am now
a source of terror for you
even sitting here in my garden of cucumbers and parsley
a terrorist
even standing before God 

Allahu Akbar                              God is great
Subhaana rabbiyal 'Alaa          Glory to my Lord, the Most High

prostrate before God
a terrorist
you walk away down the street, 
but I can’t walk away from          
my skin                    my name          my God
I can only hold out my hand

As Salaamu 'alaikum wa rahmatulaah            Peace and blessings of God be upon you