Abu Dhabi

when he had a moment,

he'd take a bus into town and

watch the local men walk home from work.

some of the younger kids would crack jokes

about the white robes, ghost-linen symbols

sitting outdoors, speaking indecipherable

anything over coca-cola and sharwarmas

but he pushed aside the laughter, realized

it is much easier to hate what frightens you,

when you are too young to know the difference-

from the base, when the jets were

out, the corral doors open wide and

waiting, all the mechanics silent for a moment

across an illusory vastness, he could

hear the muezzins mark out the

sacred times, and more than anything,

they'd tell him he was not very far away,

in a place that holds itself in ancient hands

of faith and new bonds of global finance,

one can never be very far away from anything.