I.

With the u no foreigner can pronounce,

Sud, ambulance, musique,

Soft like the surf over sand,

Coming and going, rising and receding

Over the beach where we walked

All those winter afternoons

In Gammarth, bare toes buried deep

As we watched the fire, eating cold takeout.

Tunisia is the country as a whole,

But I’ve slipped into the local habit of

Naming country and capital the same.

Confusing, yes, but comfortable.  

Tunisie as the French say, but they have no claim

On this soil now. Nor do I, really.

Not the claim of ownership, or of belonging,

But something else. Perhaps of pride.

II.

Despite that, I won’t return to

The cracked whitewash and dripping jasmine,

Arching over the clutter of tools and flame

As Ethan’s foundry sprays sparks and

Roars like the waves in Raf-raf

Or Haouaria, as they tear

At the wreck of the ship as it slips

Below the waters year by year.

Before we left, Hamida handed me

A jar of honey from down South,

Perhaps Jendouba, the blue mountains

And smell of manure, hay covered fields

And standing weeds, broken farmhouses and

Lived-in ones, half-made, tiling around the

Water pump in the yard. We went for the Eid

One year. It felt like Christmas.

III.

Tunis (the capital, not the country)

Is a city of contradictions of cultures,

Narrow streets covered in bougainvillea, and

Those trees that coat the road in purple and

The view over the salt flats and city and

Cars parked on sidewalks and

The cry to prayer ringing the air and

The hrathar owner sorting my strawberries.

My feet know the path to school well,

From Menzah 1 to Mutuelleville,

The silver shop, medina heat—

I’ll always know those streets.

They stand in my memory

Perhaps a bit too bright, too high

In contrast, too empty of the friends

Who walked them beside me.

Coming and going, rising and receding,

The memories hit when I least expect.

To live is to leave, as I've said in the past,

But I know in my soul that I will come back.