Istanbul

They are plastering on lipstick in pay-to-enter toilets 

around the corner from the mosques, where old men 

sit on back streets selling toilet seats, spices by the 

shovel, flashlights, and Audrey Hepburn t-shirts;

the city going about its day like a petulant child, 

pushing us on impatiently, racing ahead and turning 

back to beckon us to catch up, to buy whatever it points

at, to stay up late with us and tug at our shirts to the

extent that we take refuge in a café across the bridge

from the Grand Bazaar to watch the helium moon float 

and burn above the Bosphorus while murmuring a prayer 

to the Marmara or to whatever god is above us that we'll 

sleep with the belief that we had found something new.