A kind Saturday morning
last hours in Castile
Fernando at El Rastro draped in grey overalls
he knew of my country and the Dhufar revolt
He carried his worldliness with grounded dignity
selling Basque pins, the flag of the Republic
purple-striped au fond, stripped away ferociously
at Moorish-walled Toledo.
Wael Almahdi is a poet who grew up in the US and currently lives in Bahrain. His work has appeared or is awaiting publication in ArabLit Quarterly, The Knight Letter (re his Arabic translation of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’), Blue Minaret, Journal for Higher Criticism, and Dental News (poem titled, ‘Dentophobe.’)
