TO THE SAUDI STUDENT WHO LEFT HIS PRAYER SCHEDULE BEHIND<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When he arrived in September he could say \u201chello\u201d <\/p>\n “To the Saudi Student Who Left his Prayer Schedule Behind” is forthcoming in Strange with Age<\/em> (Black Heron Press, 2014).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sharon Cumberland<\/a> has been writing poetry since 1983, and has published in a wide variety of magazines and journals, including Ploughshares,The Iowa Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Kalliope<\/em> and Verse.<\/em>\u00a0Her first full-length collection is Peculiar Honors<\/em> <\/a>(Black Heron Press, 2011). Her second collection, Strange with Age,<\/em> is forthcoming from Black Heron in 2014. After a career in New York as an arts manager, working for the Lincoln Center Theater Company and the Metropolitan Opera, she earned a Ph.D. in English from the City University of New York. She is now an Assistant Professor of American Literature and Poetry at\u00a0Seattle University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" TO THE SAUDI STUDENT WHO LEFT HIS PRAYER SCHEDULE BEHIND When he arrived in September he could say \u201chello\u201d and smile with eyes one might have seen in a caravanserai a thousand years ago. He would leave his shoes … Continue reading
\nand smile with eyes one might have seen
\nin a caravanserai<\/em> a thousand years ago.
\nHe would leave his shoes outside his bedroom
\ndoor, wear perfume in his hair, excuse himself
\nfrom the table to pray on a carpet on the floor,
\nguided by his compass and a yellow schedule.
\nI taught him how to grill a cheese sandwich,
\nboil pasta, fry an egg, so he could feed himself
\nwhen I was at work. His mothers and sisters
\nhad fed him in Jiddah, and washed his clothes,
\nso I showed him how to do laundry, empty the trash,
\nsew on a button. His buddies came over
\nto practice English, smoke sheeshas<\/em>\u2014apple
\ntobacco flavoring the air. Their mothers
\nsent them spices and recipes for kapsah;<\/em>
\nI showed them how to thaw the chicken,
\nsteam the rice. He called me his American mother,
\nbecause there is no word in Arabic for a single woman
\nwho owns a home, or drives a car to teach
\nat a university. His four mothers sent him sugar dates,
\nalmonds and green coffee. They sent me a pound
\nof saffron. At Christmas I gave him a snow globe
\nof Santa Claus. He asked to come to church with me,
\nbut lost his courage. He went home at Easter,
\nreturned with a pink hajalib for me,<\/em> his third mother
\nproud to have found a dress large enough
\nto fit such a big American woman.<\/p>\n