My Jewish wife and I
went into the Old City
through Damascus Gate
to eat sweet orange squares of knafeh.
I suggested walking the calories off
around the perimeter of the Old City walls
to see a different side of Jerusalem.
We ambled from Arab to Jewish
neighborhoods, glassy fashion stores
cut into limestone. We hiked against
the dirt-smeared 16th century wall
to rockier, hillier terrain.
My wife said she had to pee
but there were no bathrooms around.
She held it for a while but it became urgent
near a public sculpture by Daniel Buren.
I held lookout as she squatted
by the base of the sculpture.
My eyes followed the path
of the liquid on the ground,
which branched tributaries,
figuring out where it wanted to go.
I sometimes played a joke on my wife
when she crouched to put food for the dogs
or grab a book from a bottom shelf—
I’d tip her over, and she’d shout at me
from the floor and thwack me and laugh
as she did here, but getting up off balance,
her hand went into the urine on the ground.
She shouted again, differently, a dangerous
edge in her laughter as she lunged at me
and wiped her drenched hand across
the back of my neck in retaliation.