Poem for Godot

by Fady Joudah

My dog, the mosquitoes
that siphon my blood,

the cucumbers, each
have their horoscope.

Do cucumbers bear
the stars of their flowers?

It’s the zygote
that marks me. My dog,

a designer mutt, a Pisces,
my favorite type of folks,

hates water, loves mud.
The azalea in the garden

bloomed a Leo, its seeds
ascended a Taurus sky.

And St. Francis’s birthday
is unknown though his zodiac is

his wolf’s. Giovanni, shipwrecked
before I reached Jerusalem

I talked with the birds.
Are you the hoopoe

or the Simurgh? In Egypt
I shared my nights and rations

with a canid: everywhere
we went we met no witness.

Published on March 14, 2018