al madina
frozen glass coca cola bottle competing with body in perspiration during Omdurman heatwave/ that damned television static in the background like monsoon rain pouring down courtyard walls/ the raw knuckled man who washes clothes gets fired & must find a new way to suffer for the platter of فول & bread/ but elsewhere a fat sheep bleats in protest of the knife at its jugular/ the breaking & sucking of sugarcane stalk/ the clay of Omdurman’s Nile as copper as the fisherman’s skin in the sun/ elsewhere the souq! with chili, كركديه, cumin, قنقوليز, dates!/ elsewhere a man begs for spare change with prayer/ the Friday dervishes spin to praise God in green/ a dictator laughs/ elsewhere a cassette plays محمد الأمين to soothe the Omdurman heart, which is like the mango squashed between the fingers (or the bandaged wound).
…..
hamad el-nil
by the shaykhs tomb/ a blur of
green &
red covered black
skin holds up
Friday sky as prayer cuts
through the shout & spin
of body.
…..
Poetry © Fatima Elbadri
Image: Dall-E remixed