Desert 

by Rakaya Esime Fetuga 

Sometimes this city can look like a desert 

concrete dunes that stretch endless 

further than the London eye can see, 

parched travellers riding the nine to five like 

   camels – 

fatigued, legs beginning to falter – buckling 

under the weight 

          of expectation, the weight of finding happiness in 

          a title, or in 

          a bank balance, 

          in a notification, or in tiny pixel idols that 

our flesh will never become.

London can look like a desert when water 

is a glimpse of God’s signs 

and our hearts are blind 

sandstorms of self-indulgence swirling up under 

our eyelids 

grains wedged between our teeth 

can’t speak – some lose belief 

that there is another way. 

But many 

will grip the truth even tighter 

knowing 

there is water when you know where to look 

there are floods, guided by the one 

who had water flow from his hands

streaming a straight path through 

the sand, there is goodness over 

flowing 

people who quench dry throats 

with Blessed Names 

looking past themselves 

to see everyone is a vessel – topped up 

with water, knowing 

serving people is the work of 

hydrologists 

to be with Allah we only need 

to look at the world 

at each other 

pour a little of ourselves, find that 

we are dhikr

and let the monsoon dissolve 

what’s left of us. 

The city can look like an endless 

desert 

but they swear it is a shore-less 

sea. 

By Rukaya Esime Fetuga, in A Kaleidoscope of Stories: Muslim Voices in Contemporary Poetry (Lote Tree Press, 2020)  www.lotetreepress.com