The Nakhal fort cleaner,
broom like an automatic weapon,
bucket, a water grenade.
Posing against the sun-bleached wall
he seems about to run,
as we click
and click,
catching his faded trousers,
his white shirt and grey beard,
noble nose,
cloth ragged round his head.
I thought he would recite passages of poetry
Rumi and Firdawsi,
I had a mind he could view my heart,
what hid there.
But he said nothing,
and gazed into the lens
like a cat.
With his broom and bucket,
he was king of that place,
sweeping stairs and rooms,
the view to the mountains,
a crenulation,
as we stepped along the walls,
debris from another country,
and waited for his broom
to sweep us home.