Poet Andy Young at the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum on Tuesday, September 5, 2023. Photo by Chris GrangerBoraq on Mohamed Mahmoud Street
graffiti mural by Alaa Awad, Cairo, 2012
looking back racing forward
the Boraq can’t land her body
a funeral of faces an infant on her
back whose wings won’t work
her hair splays behind her
such a deep green her legs
her equine body green
back right hoof that does not kick but flies
she cannot land lest
she tramples the already
trampled angled limbs calm
battered faces floating where
they reach from concrete
as from a sea
nearby it’s said humans
sprang from the creator’s tears
now dust of factories truck exhaust a market for caged lizards
tomato vendors piles of olives bean hawkers traffic horns
obliterate the clank of swords
here near Metro near KFC the revolution’s street battles
cops and batons against corrugated metal
from street signs torn down
to shield the unarmed
her body runs her head
looks back looks down
where faces haunt red paint two faint
women shrinking behind the baltagaya
somebody’s man charging sword-first
head already a skull
a panther
leaps to reach the women drowning
in black scratches but the Boraq
looks past them to the limbs of those
flying off in winds of blood
