Ramadan

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Ramadan
by E. Doyle-Gillespie

Eating humus with your fingers
on the day before we are set to leave,
wearing my last clean denim shirt and
ignoring the distant sound of the minaret
calling us to prayer,
you tell me not to shave
and you wonder aloud if I could
grow a beard as thick as your father's or
as scant and sexy as the lead singer of
your favorite band whose face
you found so appealing on the London newsstand.
Snapping a photo of me still in bed,
you ask if all American men start at the woman's
feet, or if I am strange and kinky
with my kneeling and my heavy breathing
against the backs of your knees.
You sift through the prints that
I've left scattered on the table.
Salvage half of the peach that
I'd split with my pocket knife
the night before.
I'd knelt over you and rubbed the
cold, wet mouth of the cut
half on your body, not forgetting the ticklish
inside of your thigh and the right nipple-- the one that makes
you flinch most when I bite.
You lean in the high, arched windows
denim-shrouded and French-cut,
watching a thousand backs arching east.
You eat what is left of the fruit
with big mannish bites.
I listen to you try out your Arabic
through full cheeks as you strip
the stone naked with your mouth,
drop it among my photos
and go to the bathroom to bathe.