The villages of Algiers
Well, suburbs
Really, but villages
Is what is said
In French
And heaven
Knows, despite one
Hundred thirty years of
Colonization
Brutalization
Deprivation
The many Algerians
Still
Love French. Those
Villages team with men
At night.
At night, the women
Wait
Indoors
Behind doors, away.
Waiting.
But at night the
Men take the streets.
At night the men crowd
Streets, cut in
Front of traffic, clog
Cafes, stream
Toward the mosque away
From the mosque fill stores
But mostly
Mostly they
Squat
Sit, or just
Hold up walls.
They lean.
Stare. Talk. They watch cars
As they jostle and jolt
Watch other men
Walking, watch
The silence
The noise. Watch
Stars, the
Dark
Still buildings
The passing cat, the rhythm
Of the wind,
Watch the gibbous moon and
It’s cycle
The fullness, the waxing and waning
They watch
They witness
The villages
The suburbs
The streets
They watch
The dead.
