“Were you calling?”
“No,” says Abbas,
“And you don’t look so good.”
I walk to the piano and play a Malouf,
Song that my mother taught,
Qasida poetry, weaving in slow syncopation.
Abbas closes his eyes, smiles,
Lets his cane fall to the floor.
“Yes,” he says, whispering,
“You still have faith.”
On I play, threading the melodies,
Fragments of verse, off-keyed piano,
While Abbas sways, trembling hands,
Smiling his old man’s smile,
Yellow teeth.
They never wrote to me after I left,
Then or years later,
Not she, or the children—
Was it desertion, or saving my self?