SNOW IN CAIRO

All that is ugly shivers, unprepared for beauty.
Rubbish mounds,  frozen cats, broken chairs 
swell to soft round hips, building sites pose in lace,

pyramids shine, ghostly. Minarets plume the sky
The city is a stranger.
  

People  huddle around  televisions, 
watch snow  flakes herd across the screen.
People hang from windows, drink snow like milk.
It’s unbelievable, they say. A miracle.
They drive  to see the snow, parking where
the city expires in frosted breath,

stand on ledges of forgotten space,
pale mutations of themselves, still and silent,
marvelling  at cold ash drifting - a soft caul
of  something newborn, nameless, voiceless,
a forgotten god, 
 
until, the children run, galaxies riding their backs, 
shoes biting ice, waving  palms
wreathed in crystal, tasting sky - expecting sugar.
The curtain thickens, snowballs fly,
a  snowman stares, stone eyed
at footprints gouging, the caul splitting.
A terrible silence is born.
 

More of my poetry can be read on http://www.odyssey.com, http://www.chanticleer-press.com/, http://www.vivimusmag.com/poetry.html