Goats
1 Minute Read Time
On the rooftops of Cairo
under satellite dishes
that stand there like ossified planets
goats erode their own orbits.
Instead of ellipses—zigzags
through refuse and debris,
from concrete apartments to ornate domes
of medieval mosques,
from top floor additions, laundry out drying,
to houses left in ruins after the earthquake passed,
from this roof where I watch to others
bustling with people, as on any day.
Cairo goats, your meddling tracks
entangle the colorful dovecote and abandoned shack.
In your search for a few withered leaves
you connect someday with now, abundance with lack.
Down below, streets clatter with a thousand horns,
while above prayers sound from the minarets
and in between—
bleating.
Read more from Issue 17.1.
