On Tuesday was the sandstorm, Wednesday comes the rain

Everyday, I drive past a synagogue,
surrounded by suspicious guards
and scaffolding

[There are dabs of white paint
on the surface,
as though change would matter
for a religion that died in Egypt
fifty years ago.]

Around it buildings heave
under the weight
of billboards
telling people to spend the money

they don’t have

on

non-alcoholic beer and sugar-free pepsi,
meals in Italian restaurants
and villas in New Cairo
because the city has started to crawl
outside of itself.

Yesterday it all barely emerged
from beneath a thick sheet of sand
laying the length of the city
and sealing eyes and mouths shut
of those caught outside
the safety of four walls.

And the tree that I see
from my fourth floor balcony
[the one that always stays closed]
swayed, as though ready to topple
its spine, buckling
after its purple petals were ripped
into the sand,
petals that looked the way
lavendar should look.

Later tonight
it will rain
bringing the city
to a standstill,
God’s fingers
tapping a rhythm on roofs
rarely heard in Cairo

and I will drive past the Sadat Memorial
after midnight
the streets emptied of life
save the two men

statuesque
on the stairs where the president was shot
the rain washing their faces
of

the

sand.