Hind calls me mélange with a smile -
but on a crooked side street she likes my accent
and in the hammam she tells me I scrub like the Moroccans do
Her father and I cannot speak
in this house in the Ocean
but with gentle shriveled laughter like dried fruit
he taps the table
when the sheep in the loft looks at me
and points to the cages
when the yellow birds sing
He asks how many hours from
San Francisco to Rabat? and how do you say in Spanish? and he points,
borrego - borrego - borrego - until he gets it right
inhale of ammonia and livestock,
folded hands on stained tablecloth -
I think I have been here before
In the prayer room,
I speak French braids,
Hind's hair thick and oily with the
tangles of the medina,
Kerima's soft and clean from the
new apartment in Salé,
and Saida's is long, long, long and
falling from her head scarf in waves
and the women laugh when I am surprised
My feet are not dizzy
(as I thought they would be)
on the avenues of kings,
between Andalusian walls,
behind the mosque on the hill,
in the streams of the Turkish bath,
at the mouth of the Mediterranean
I say I am maghribiya,
watching tile explode like sun,
like feet dipping into freshwater,
unsure of what is at the core
of these concentric circles
Woman of the place where the sun sets,
I am migrating from west coast to west coast
and I liked that you believed me when I said
I've been here before
and I am
two blocks from the Atlantic
but still I forget, this is edge of the world
