The Only Show in Town
April 2002
in Ramallah
the tourist trade’s
in the doldrums, scarcely
a breath of foreign
currency.
the concierges
wait behind their desks
hoping for the bright
clatter of WASPS,
the irrelevant mateship
of Ockers, the superior
vowels of the English.
in kitchens
chefs are frustrated
in stairwells
housemaids get frantic
in banks
tellers go mad for want of silver …
& in the streets
people look around them in wonder
at the flowering turrets of tanks
at the way arteries spout —
even from a child
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