Prayers
Perched high upon the escarpment
of sandstone rubble, the boy sat,
shaded from the rising of the sun
in the shadow of Kings.
Sharp eyed he preyed
upon the tourist below, and to his God Allah.
His path was a treacherous one
looped and twisting like the snakes of ochre gold
shone cresting the brow of Ramesses
in the unearthly Valley of the Kings;
far from the osprey and marsh grass
of the beloved Nile.
Below the boy, on a zigzag path
between the mouth-like openings to the netherworld,
tourists swarm, ants on a mound of honey stone
suckers of sweetness, oblivious,
as they had done for centuries.
He sat as his father before him
hunkered down knees to chest
the vulture heraldic creature of Upper Egypt
death eater, little had changed except
now the robbers wore blue jeans and not the hajab.
He had earned his small bit
of the twentieth century..hawking
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