Look Back and Stand Damn Still.

There was no phone call.  
Only a letter, and that two weeks late.   
It came to tell me we were losing you.  You,
My brother, your eyes as green as Lake Turkana.
 
A call for a plane.  A comatose boy. 
Tan and strong and almost dead on the white sheets. 
Typhoid found lurking in the dark 
Quiet alleys of your blood. 
 
What—if you were lost—would I do? 
As an African once wrote, undoubtedly  
In similar circumstance: 
Drown me if you like, 
But kill me not with caprices.

--Teej

Ten Little Pieces.

Would you not just hate it, being a chicken?
Your fine flesh referred to as quite finger-lickin?

Imagine. She orders the ten nugget bag.
Drives off and forgets you. (Damn you, old hag.)

And there you are sitting, your skin fried in creases,

Alone in a sack. Cut in ten little pieces.
Ah, hell.  Feel the grief. You're being wasted.
Joining the throng of all good things untasted.

--Teej

poem from seth

Short story by Teej...sorry I've been away so long!

                               The Devoted

          The woman quavered her way into La Maison Arabe.  The manager, Dante, saw her coming, because the Moroccan hotel had glass front doors with tiny rows of camels painted across them.  Out of her gray hair protruded a straw, and as she came in, she pulled it out and began to chew it absently.
          “What do you need?” Dante asked.
          The woman eased the door shut behind her.  “Have you seen Robb?” she said.
          “Robb?”
          “Yes.  Robb.” She stared at him, expectant.
          “What is his full name?”
          But instead of answering she stared at the pile of green towels on the reception desk.  Her hands were coming in and out of her pockets.  She seemed to be looking for change and forgetting she had none.
           “Robb,” she said again.  She opened her eyes wide and stared at him without blinking.
            He flexed his toes.  “What does he look like?”
            “Well,” she said, perusing his Arab-Italian face, “Not so much like you.  He has brown eyes like you do, yes.  But no…not so much like you at all.”
          “Do you want coffee?” he said finally, helplessly.
          “No.  Thank you.  No.”
           He bent under the counter to put away the towels and to think without having to look at her.  There was a fresh stack of newspapers and he hefted them and set them on the counter.  He glanced at the headline.  Elderly man killed beside Mosque of Koutoubia.
           Oh stop, he thought.  It couldn’t be.  Marrakech had what, seventy four thousand people?  There were many elderly men in the Red City.

            Still he set the coffeepot on top of the pile of newspapers.  “Do you want coffee?” he said again, forgetting he’d asked.
           “No,” she said.  “I really don’t.”
            She made her way back to the door.  “No,” she said again.  She began to chew her straw.  “I really don’t.  But thank you very much.”  She went outside and she held the door open, as though expecting someone to walk out after her.  A beggar was sitting next to the door, collecting change in a turban and grinning crazily. Just inside the door sat a glass cage full of hermit crabs, and its inhabitants gathered and looked at her, their eyes standing up over their heads like tiny skyscrapers.  She stared at them.
            “Have you seen Robb?” she said.