give a nomad a house

Give me reasons not to be/ oblivion, irony./ Like something in Wisconsin,/ I am all the dirt I know./ Having come to in someone/ else’s boredom, I’m alive—/ and it’s an all-new boredom,/ a boredom of cathedral/ proportion. Empty as folk,/ I just make up, make over/ everything. Lately, I don’t/ even want a piece of me.
Graham Foust, Retarded Artifact

This is the way it was as we sat down with Mubarak and Salim al Rashidi al Kathiri in their allotted house in Hashman. We are sipping on tea and being sprayed with a blue bottle of potent cologne called Rally – with two white racehorses as its logo – to get rid of the last traces of our journey. Both brothers work with the wali’s office, tending to their camels after. They are askar, or civilians in the army, each earning RO350 a month, with everything provided.

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