Aziz

Aziz the night watchman of the riad
A boy of 26 years old or younger
I couldn’t tell
Morrocans look older than they are
Often
Asked me if I would ride
On his motor bike to the hamam
I held onto his waste
Identifying me as a foreigner
Everyone else just sits on the back of a bike
Like it’s a couch
Maybe holding on to a bar with one hand
We swerve through a part of the medina I don’t know
The way is no more than 5-6 feet wide
And at times only 3 feet wide
The turns are particularly
Delicate and the ones he knows to be dangerous
He squeezes the horn
We almost took the head off a man
Whose hair was the color of frittes
As he walked out of his riad
“pardon!” and “sorry” we both yelled back
The air was not marakeshi
It was cool and zesty
He put on a coat
But I kept my light and silk shirt
We flew past a young girl with a pail
And women in their typical mountain peak
Veil silhuouttes
The smell of diesel
And animal
And urine are strong
Overwhelmed me in its strong wind
And I mentioned it to aziz’s ear
“It is normal for me, but not for you”
He said though he doesn’t really speak English
I grow addicted to traveling this way,
Particularly in the medina, in its narrow passageways
And in the sections that tourists do not know
And do not go
He turns down a narrow narrow alley
From a popular souk
And it is like we have opened a door to the
Secret and off-limits bowels of the ancient medina
Part of me wishes to see it thirty years ago
The other part knows that my now sterile and
Sanitized stomach perhaps couldn’t handle it
I think of Kabul but this isn’t Kabul though
Some of the smells are the same
Aziz is gentle
He is tall and has the strongest nose
And darker skin than a berber
But its still a mixed shade
It’s still a beautiful glow like oil butter and black oil were
Mixed together the butter somehow still apparent
He is kind