in the slow noon of kadikoy
a silver haired man emerges
from a building to serve tea
             all-important Muslim liquor
             brownish, orange caffeine
             a couple have a cigarette
the man hardly shaves
eyes worn, overslept
into midweek youth
              hot and cool neighborhood
              just after dawn, young women
              walk to class and work
to cross the Marmara, Bosphorus
passing a man in an apron
outside the green grocer
              dimly lit morning haze
              seagulls compete with cats
              and dogs go wild in the street
no one rushes as night comes
among warm, romantic intellectuals
breathing out thoughts like smoke
               beyond earshot of the political fray
               nearly December, the sun is warm
               through sunbathed apartments
pets sleep in bed together
and an expat writes and writes
and writes and writes and writes

Alexander Menachem is a Romaniote heritage poet based in Istanbul and New York. He is an international arts and culture reporter currently producing a literary anthology of Judeo-Greek writing from antiquity to the contemporary titled Romaniote Literature. His travelogue to northwestern Greece, The Clouds of Ioannina, is forthcoming as a photobook.