we did not hold hands often we clenched legs under the table hands were too public for two who did not know how feelings socailize we sat on a bench on the corniche watching the nile at noon it was full and calm we could hear the wind sing to the trees on its sides you held my hand and I looked as you took it towards you the wind stopped singing and my heart wanted to come out and taste the water I said look how my hand looks no matter how many times I wash it you said look how mine sweats and then asked if it bothered me I held your wrist and folded your hand and brushed it with mine again and again until it is my hand that is wet you smiled and looked down happy and shy like a bird folding into itself I asked you for a kiss I could not say it I wrote it in a notebook you once wrote your name in words were too intimate for two who did not know how love talks the notebook became a pigeon back and forth between us it held words our mouths dared not admit you wrote a falouka is where you get one you knew the nile had none that day no one teaches a girl how to want without bruising the family name so you swallowed it and it bloomed somewhere I could not reach and I loved before I had the language then it came in a dialect I had to translate for myself so I spat it out and kept the bitter ache I would go through your things and asked about them I claimed to get to know you better through the small and ordinary to break what ice may be left you said I know but I secretly hoped I would be mistaken for your watermelon lipstick and go home with you but you went home and I stayed I pass by the bench and ask it why are you still here it says nothing but I hear echoes of your laughter so I sit and watch the nile full and calm but the wind no longer sings it just blows and I get cold easily nowadays but I wait a falouka might pass ————————————– Muhammad Rabih called us from Egypt. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems x.com/voicemailpoems bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social instagram.com/voicemailpoems