The presence of 5: Travelers in Morocco

by Tobey Hiller

so now we are five. it is

a collusion of dyads and triads, 3’s

not a crowd or triangle but a prime

number how we make our breakfast, lunch

in windward weather skyhigh or the rain.

it will be evening soon or dinnerward or after

all is said and done we sleep, toss, dream

reports. of what I ate, or you saw, their glances

the many silk of saunter through the ochres

mister mister! madame! bright pots of copper

noon boils only when the tempo’s saunter

is easy the only way to go? dirt, striped patience à

droîte où gauche streets meander veiled

a woman wearing mint years offers tea,

her number started very young, three boys

quarrel over walkway coin, two tarnished

ankles, blued by countless days

of walking skins in vats, the third

shopkeeper bows & shakes his head

the four wrinkles in his forehead

each have a word to say, don’t forget

it is the fifth gate beyond the fountain

and the 19^th sleeping cat, while donkeys’

longday steps mount un-numbered and

sun stripes thought’s covered shoulder, flicks

noon into any color, and everyone, head down,

counts bleached moments between shadows

so in our nomad moment

sometimes with us it’s two and then

3 makes a stool on which to sit gaze or also

5 threads a mosaic way, plink by plink

lean back the olive trees, Roman urns, grin

masks or music meant for who you aren’t

black wings carried on a market shoulder

Berber silence, desert glitter, mud

walls, salt silence, goats in trees.

maps crumble in the hot gold shadow

but a feather breeze points us 5 or 3 or 2

to count steps one by one, touch brief

honey in drops of time

* * * * *

Tobey Hiller’s publications include: Three poetry collections, Crossings, Certain Weathers, Aqueduct; a novel, Charlie's Exit; poetry and prose in many magazines and three anthologies, an Afterword for a Signet Classic Edition of Jack London’s work. Awards: two magazine firsts for poems (Milkweed Chronicle and SF Poetry); fiction: "The Seventh Blue," finalist for the 2009 REYNOLDS PRICE SHORT FICTION AWARD and "Splinter," finalist for the 2016 Los Gatos-Listowel Short Story Contest.