National Security Advisory

The Guardian reports on a Palestinian businessman who obtained a unanimous fatwa to open a pornography-free online sex shop to help couples reignite their love lives. The imams who approved the venture said: “Islam supports anything that helps a married couple to connect.”

I’d like to alert the NSA agents tracking Arab men:

anonymous brown paper packages will be delivered

to married couples all over the Middle East.

Before you call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff

let me assure you,

our people are starved for love, not bombings.

Those late night calls from temporary cell phones?

They weren’t plans to attack,

just plans to rendezvous

bypassing multiple layers of family surveillance.

The breathless whispered Arabic on the line?

Code: yes, but not sacred verses.

Arab love falls under siege.

Everywhere is public space

and the public are a sober bunch.

On our romantic jihads

the path is long and arduous

and fraught with prying neighbors.

We can’t even find a place to take an evening stroll,

our war-weary streets dilapidated,

our squares overflowing with revolutionary traffic.

And even though the garden jasmine

pours forth its sultry perfume

and a million stars crowd the night skies,

everyone is indoors chain-smoking

their lives away

and watching the news.

And the news has been old

for a while now.

Sometimes,

all we have left is prayer.

So the women pray for fundamentalism—strict

adherence to the Sunna.

And the Sunna says:

“Let there first be a messenger between you.”

Words and kisses first,

O bring back the words and kisses.

Source: Water & Salt (Red Hen Press, 2017)