I’ve been kept up at night
with thoughts of Cairo,
such beautiful despair.
So far in nature from your
Egyptian namesake;
so quiet and so bare.

So tonight I won’t sleep
in honor of Cairo,
a town that’s slept too hard.
And blanket my body
in vines and rubble,
and lay out in the yard.

And if I grow old
I will grow old like Cairo,
so far from its own birth.
I’ll break down my buildings
and re-grow my weeds,
and sink back to the earth.