In the depths of the purple sea

A chunk of beach concrete
            & a small carved jade
to set against the weather
                        anywhere but here

Like a whistle in the dark
when no one's listening

There's an underlying lie that begs to
difference when in fact all's
too precious to matter for more than
a fractured second (if even)

& the song comes round again
on the sunnyside of a failed rhyme
that I know you know could be
rescued at the last minute by a
simple misplaced syllable

Now it's only this slanted light & air
trembling
                "Hello my name is Mustafa"
                "I come from Cairo"
                "I came to fix the pipes"