The Beggars of Beirut
A Poem by Philip Metres
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.