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.