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rather?
    I’d rather be
underground.

TWO
Amir

    Cordoba, Castile and Malaga, Granada
1486–87

Falcon
    Like a fool, I go.
Or, like a falcon.
    Let me explain.
    Young boys
believe falcons are noble.
They are, after all,
kept by kings.
    But here’s how they train such a bird.
Tie its feet to a stick.
Strap leather blinders upon its poor eyes.
When these come off,
it has forgotten the whole notion
of freedom.
    Ramon has commanded I go
to his “lady” as if I were still
his little slave boy.
    What he doesn’t know:
Papa (I call him that at his bidding)
gave me my freedom
three months ago.
    Yet I am sent off
like a clever pet. To make
Master ’s excuse to a spoiled,
shallow girl.

Break
    You’re not supposed to speak up.
    For centuries the emirs of Granada
— Muslim kings—kept their bitter mouths shut.
    They paid for the privilege of staying
in al-Andalus, the land they once proudly
called theirs.
    When the collectors came calling from up in Castile,
the proud Southern Muslims paid up.
    But every such story must end
with a change.
    Our break in the chain was Abu al-Hassan.
When the King’s envoy came to him for the tax,
al-Hassan sent him away.
    â€œWe do have a mint here,” smiled the emir.
“But the weaklings who used it
to make coins for Christians are all dead and gone.
Today our mint makes only
scimitars’ blades.”
    Since then, war’s been brewing.
The Christian army—
led by Fernando, the King—
has many new toys and is eager to play.
    I bet, were I the emir,
I’d have paid peace’s price.
    Watch how I’ll be with Ramon, in a day:
all too glad to forgive and make nice.

How?
    Still,
how can I go back?
    It’s not just Ramon.
    It’s also this fact:
it’s better I’ve gone.
    If I stick around,
that Señor Ortiz will never relent.
    He will chase them from there
as sure as the lion
chases the stag.

The Cathedral of Santa María
    I wait.
    This jewel of Cordoba
wasn’t always a church.
    Muslims came here
from all over al-Andalus
to say Friday prayers.
    As a child in Granada
I heard of it often.
    They’ve kept its lacework of pillars and arches.
Its splendid mosaics iced in pure gold.
    But they’ve ruined its balance,
its simple form.
    The Christians have plopped a vast choir pit—
pompous wood benches, cold, tomb-gray stone—
    right in the middle. To the Christians,
it’s progress. But to us few Muslim faithful
    who still haunt these streets, it’s
a blight. Like rouge on the face
    of a ten-year-old girl, glowing without it,
just as she was.
    Even the Christians don’t seem to respect it.
Its courtyard, where Muslims once washed
    before prayers, is famous these days
for trysts between lovers.
    It is said that the mosque once contained magic.
    Even filled up with thousands of the faithful,
there still felt like room for ten thousand more.
    It seemed to be made,
so the chroniclers say, out of shadow and light.
    Now it’s no more than dead marble and stone.

Lady
    I’ve been lost in these thoughts.
So I jump when I hear boots on the tile.
    A clipped, low laugh.
Not the voice of a girl.
    Then, she arrives.
Swoops onto the scene like a lady at court.
Willing all eyes upon her.
Can’t this girl be discreet?
    Once more I think, What does he see?
Then I recall how angry I am.
She and Ramon are made for each other, that’s all.
    Will she not use her head? Stand in a less glaring spot?
    If a Muslim is seen
with a Christian girl of her class—and alone…
    Perhaps her honor is not dear to her.
But I like my head attached to its neck.
    Now she’s humming, if it
could be called that. Have I really found things
too quiet these days?
The voice of this girl could scare dragons
from out of their caves.

A Little White Square
    That low laugh again. I look: there.
A clutch of young men in one corner. They ooze
trouble.
    I don’t know what they’re up to.
But I don’t need