My Women are Tabla & Qanoun
by Nur Turkmani

I could swear I was born in Cairo, 
breastfed from the Nile –  
look at my blood when I dance to sha3bi music, 
how it turns to river. 
After reading Naguib Mahfouz’s Palace of Desire, 
I wore blue eyeshadow & pink jalabiya & khilkhal. 
I married five men like Fifi Abdo 
& killed them all in my sleep 
then stepped into a cabaret, down the corner,
to dance for the women        my women, 
you are tabla & qanoun 
you are silver coins on my waist 
you are black hair smelling of sunsilk shampoo 
you are white tarboush & blue misbaha 
on the hands of one khalto starting the dabkeh 
& another praying to God. My women, 
I count your 99 names under my breath 
& dream of a city created in your image.

I know what you’ll tell me at midnight: 
Cairo is not the same & they’ve closed up 
the casinos. You’re right, a whole world,
it’s changing maybe for the worse maybe not 
but yesterday, did we not dance 
to Souad Hosny on the rooftop,
did you not see the young girls clap 
for their newly wed friend? 
Is Oum Kolthoum not bursting 
from the camps & cab drivers — 
have you heard Maryam Saleh’s song,
didn’t you just want to love to it? 

Morning will come & we will stitch 
rhinestones onto bras. You will hang 
your purple underwear to dry & wink at me 
like a secret right before the women,
our women, tickle you to curl your small finger 
to migrating clouds, to move with them 
like birds in flight.

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Nur Turkmani is a Lebanese-Syrian researcher based in Beirut, focusing on economic development, gender dynamics, and uprisings in the Middle East. She is the Managing Editor of Rusted Radishes: Beirut Art and Literary Journal's website. Her poem "Body Parts" was a runner-up for the Barjeel Poetry Prize. She is currently working on a short story collection while studying creative writing at the University of Oxford.