James Sutherland-Smith
A violin playing in Cairo
Between two apartment blocks
Somewhere above the space
Where a dozen cats live
And four dogs, each the colour of rust
Like the tins they sleep among,
A violin must be playing.
What else could the three old mothers
Dressed in black be listening to
As they sip tea across the street?
For once they aren’t gossiping.
What else could the woman
In the red housecoat, which she fastens
Again and again as the breeze
Pulls it open, be dancing to?
There is no radio sound
Blaring from her balcony.
And what else could smarten up
The slack, untidy guardians
Of the military college
To something like efficiency?
Since before they lounged and picked
Their fingernails with bayonet points.
No general’s limousine
Slides through the barrack gates.
What could the violin mean?
Is the sound an insult
Like wealth wrung from this rundown city?
Or is it useless comfort
Like saying we are slaves
In the sight of God and must accept?
I do not know but listen and listen
As the violin continues
Above and beneath clouds
White as shirt fronts in an orchestra
Until darkness settles
Like a burnous over everything
Leaving only as accompaniment
The creak of tramcars on their rails,
The croak of taxihorns
And somewhere, close by, laughter
And the trilling cries of women
As a bride is brought home and to bed.
Page(s) 60-61
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