Below the rail, scarred, wooden,
a shocking weight of sun bears
heavy
on slack drugged water shrugging
its listless skin of thin
dead-dust oil
against the bobbing corn husks,
against floundering shreds of
newsprint,
bleached and yellow, slimed with
weed;
below the surface scum,
translucent
jelly-fish balloon and roll,
drifting since forever,
peacefully,
easy in the Bosphorus;
the fading dreams, the hopes now
ruined, dead,
the dirt, the buzz, the bustle
of a city choked with yesterdays
fall away, irrelevant;
this is real, this alone eternal:
three fledgling heads, ink-black
eyes
fixed sparkling on the gossamer
thread
pulled hand over hand, leaping
and spinning with twisting silver
light.
My eyes throw questions: many?
Pride pulls wide the warm plastic
prison,
offers up the small fishes -
shy smiles, signing fingers:
twelve.
I marvel, praise, am joy-struck.
“You Deutchlander?” - daring
now. “English.”
“Ah, Englander...” - wisely, kind.
“You,” pointing in my turn,
triumphant,
“you Turkish!” A good joke that,
one of the best, lasting us an
hour
or so this morning, leaning
on the rail of Galtieri Bridge
with Turah, Yacob, Yoki:
four pairs of eyes focused on the
line
that promises tomorrow
in this city choked with
yesterdays.
(July,
1990)
