Surprised By Joy
Who might he have looked like
like my neighbor Sam Katz
sweeping the sidewalk
in his lucky Giants cap
the one with the Israeli flag pin
and a miniature mezuzah
like Hakim at the Trieste
making the perfect cappuccino
all day every day
reserving his banter for the women.
He must have been dark-skinned
curly beard
headwrap of some sort
to keep the sand out of his hair
short hirsute circumcised
his family desert people
water is precious
the sustainer of life
a complaining people
eyes down mostly
the Roman yoke one more burden.
Night watch in the hills –
a pack of no-good illiterates
distracted by the chanting and the music
now startled by the whirling lights
pick up and run into the town
not knowing what they might find.
John Norton
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