The Beggars of Beirut

scroll through dumpsters
like daily digital feeds,

translating trash to dinner.
This auntie doles out

packages of napkins,
searching my face

for a smudge of compassion.
She adjusts her hijab,

collapses in shadow
of a highrise naked

of windows. This boy
sells gum—no, a smile

that pleads for keys
to the house

of mercy. That one
extends stubs to a ballet

once featuring her
lissome legs. Today,

she prays aloud for me,
imperturbable god

with the leisure
to ignore the cries.

My lost sisters, my dear
sons, my done uncles

and drained mothers, my
beloved broken

fingers, you tap me
to the spine, column

climbing my clouded
sight, and past, rising

to a place so high
and so far, we can’t be told

or held apart.

Philip Metres

Philip Metres is the author of Ochre & Rust: New Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky (2023), Shrapnel Maps (2020), The Sound of Listening (2018), Sand Opera (2015), and other books. His work has garnered fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Lannan Foundation, NEA, and the Ohio Arts Council. He has received the Hunt Prize, the Adrienne Rich Award, three Arab American Book Awards, the Lyric Poetry Prize, and the Cleveland Arts Prize. He is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University, and Core Faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.