Forged out of bitter and total
defeat.
Hammered out of an unwarranted
feeling of conceit.
Knitted out of most foolish lies
and most obvious acts of deceit.
Woven in the full blinding light of
other people’s history –
an oriental tapestry of shame,
an inauspicious sense of
semi-identity,
my identity, no matter
how unchosen,
as a modern day Arab.
May 1998