I had a question for her so I went
through convoluted alleys to the place:
no sacred groves of olives but a mill
abandoned when the textiles died.

Reached by a narrow staircase
with a missing step, the top floor
opened on the sky, exposed.
Each city has an underside –

a burnt-out region to avoid
where streets are unlit and no one goes.
And there I found her,
cold and drugged and shivering

on the mattress where she dozed.
Not as old as you’d expect
for someone so acquainted with the world,
when she reached her hand out

and the moonlight fell on it
there were no wrinkles puckering the skin.
I gave her nothing but a crumpled note.
She cast her glass beads on the floor.

Her answer came in riddles
as if what I’d asked were no easy thing
but a question with no answer
and no language left for it.

Escape was easier than I’d thought.
I needed no direction and no guide.
Instinct led me to the upper air.
I clambered onto rooftops

and looked out: the spires
and domes and minarets
reclaiming their identity from night,
the dawn a yellow slit.