Abbas is muttering.
Standing, I look for my paper and pen,
Books scattered about. Inhale—
I breathe in my ancestral home,
Turquoise rough stucco and terra cotta–tiled floors,
Earth colors, arches and airy rooms,
All crumbling now. There, the tinny piano
My mother once played. Here, the brass compass.
Abbas serves breakfast,
Eats at his small bench,
Belching and smiling.
Through an arched window,
I gaze at the wide rutted steps
To the terrace and down to the sea.
Garden of aloe and sharpened spine puyas,
The dune evening primrose, the prickly white poppies,
The red bougainvilleas that wind up the walls—
Shadowy shapes in the dim light of dawn.
There, bitter orange trees,
Now smelling vanilla and powdery.
Olive groves, gift of my father,
Like everything here.
Parentless now. I was a parent myself,
Father and husband.