Nardine Taleb

My aunt’s apartment sat on a main street in Al-Haram, Cairo, where I could see the three tops of the pyramids jutting out above concrete buildings. It was never quiet around Al-Haram. The streets functioned on apprehensive order, disorder, and chance. Cars used the three-lane street as a four-lane. Donkeys stood adjacent to the taxis. People sat in the trunk, with the trunk door wide open, their feet dangling over the highway.

A tigered teeth. A four-limbed wind. A thatched head. A mouth in its rusting. A can of worms plodding in a salted throat. Shards of a dull grey urn under the bristle thread of a stream. No sap or season too small. The hand of the clock floating through a muscled estuary like a limpid egg. The weathermen report dewlapped leaves & men tailing the wind with their nose to the grass. Gulls flowing past the jellied road. A fine film of gossamers lining the sky’s filament.

While her family was outside, lighting up candles and prendiendo chispitas mariposa—Carmen was inside, eating garlic cloves (one after another and drinking guaro to mourn the life she had lost) she was pale-looking and sick ravenous she would never find love. She would die alone–she was sure–unless! qué hijueputas, she walked outside, on her tippy toes, a current of cold air followed her. “Mami?” she called to the woman who no longer recognized her. Mami, again.