The Stranger in Her Feminine Sign

Everything has gender

in Arabic.

History is male.

Fiction is female.

Dream is male.

Wish is female.

Feminine words are followed

by a circle with two dots over.

They call it the tied circle,

knotted with wishes

which come true only when forgotten

or replaced by the wishes of others.

In the town of tied wishes,

people feel great anticipation

because a stranger will arrive

today in her feminine sign.

Someone says he saw her

two dots glittering,

refuting another’s vision

of a cat’s eyes hunting in darkness.

So scary, he says, how the moon

hides in her red circle.

Everyone is busy today

listing wishes on pieces

of paper they’ll give to the wind.

When the stranger finds them

on her way, she’ll collect them

and garland them to her circle,

tossing some old wishes

to make space for the new.

They say the dropped ones

will come true.

The stranger’s lateness

worries the waiting.

Someone says she’s searching

for a word to complete

a special sentence,

the gift she’ll bring to town.

Another wonders if she seeks

a verb or a noun,

offering to find her.

A third warns that the stranger

may turn him into a flower

with one touch, blooming

for only a moment,

before a withering death,

and her circle throbs with songs

causing sadness and elation,

and something so obscure

no one has a name for it.

Will she complete a verb

or a noun phrase — or give a solo,

a word complete on its own?

They wonder.

When they finally hear footsteps,

they know the stranger must be near.

Make sure the gate is open,

they remind one another.

They hear clinking — 

A bracelet? A chain?