The Adhan
He pulls the thin sheet back over
his head, even though its loose threads scratch his face. Last night’s sweat
frozen by the air con. Its rattling hum drops him back to the midnight cobbles
of Al Balad. Terraced buildings of different heights, border the lanes, their
fading fronts dressed in wooden latticed casings, and stand like an elegant
dowager, reminding others of ancient grace.
The sweet, sharp, broiled aromas
curl off hot food stalls, incense from bags of spice and nuts perfume the
wakening night as the crowds wander and wear the long day’s heat like a
familiar limb.
Beside the market, a hidden scrap of
ground reveals men and boys around a street fire; the younger ones hold flat
goatskin drums over the flames, then wave them cool, before they beat. Bodhráns, he thinks. Sticks thump air
and skin, hands clap hands, voices follow, rise, quiver, fall, skin hot,
parched breath. Almezmar. Another
voice, to the right of him, points to the moving men and boys. Almezmar. He nods.
The air con rumbles, the sheet
slips, orange light trickles through, the Adhan falls in, Jeddah’s chorus
carries him, like winds on marram grass.
Roisín
Browne lives in Rush Co Dublin and her work has appeared in The Galway Review,
Flare, A New Ulster, Poetry N.I., Live Encounters Poetry & Writing, The
Stony Thursday Book, MGV Datura, The Crossways Literary Magazine and The
Lothlorien Poetry Journal. She placed third in the Jonathan Swift Writing
Awards in 2017 and in 2018 was commended in the Gregory O’Donoghue
International Poetry Prize. She has been shortlisted in the Bangor Literary
Annual Poetry competition in 2018 and 2019.
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