The Forgotten City Poem by Fawzi Karim

Late afternoon.
The houses are shaded in the lightest of pencil strokes.
Birds have flown, nests long abandoned.
Wind flourishes its whips of cold, freezing the tongue;
Echoes of footfalls; leaves falling;
Rags and tatters of newsprint.
Birds have flown, their nests long abandoned.
You too, o errant sand dweller,
Have left nothing but footprints,
Having stared at the waves too late, and for too long.
Once the sun burnt the wrist of the city.
Now it has cooled to a silver bracelet,
Worn once, now long gone, my forgotten lady.