Tareq

Tareq told me I looked
only 18 or 19

and when I showed him blurry photos of
"my wedding"
he told me my husband was a lucky man.

We talked all the way to Hama,
about movies,
about life
and Tareq told me to be careful
as men in Syria could be dangerous.

I didn't tell him about my trouble with the taxi driver
I wanted him to think I was tough
that I could take care of myself
probably because
that's what I needed to believe.

Tareq took me out to dinner
in his villiage
just outside of Damascus
after I had seen the snow covered mountains of Northern Lebannon
and the barbed wire enclosed Baalbek
taking the Hezbollah bedecked bus from under a bridge
in Beiruit
back to this sunkissed city
of deep fried cauliflower, mozaic courtyards
and kind strangers.

Tareq told me I was beautiful
and that he wished to remember the perfect moment
of our meeting forever

but not in the way you'd think

(unless you know a lot about young Syrian men
whose english has been learnt
from Hollywood romance stories
and YouTube videos)

and when it got late
and his cousin's taxi had left
and I was afraid that
maybe I wasn't so tough after all
the city lights of Damascus
and my hotel room for one seeming so far away

his gentle calm and big brown eyes said more
than his strangely idiomatic language
and I knew he was safe

but with his city now on fire
and blood in the streets
no such safety is assured

and that scarf I let him buy me in the souk
so bright,
so unlike anything I would have chosen for myself
hangs on my coat stand
with other precious memories

of sunkissed cities
and kind strangers

and big brown eyes
in cities now on fire.