Barely old enough to fast, my father

agreed to half-a-day with water.

In the morning I put on my slippers

& moved with the rhythm of our households:

a little mimic to the adults who woke to pray.

The azhan in Alexandria was worth flinging

windows open to & drinking in while

sitting on a plastic chair on our balakona.

Worth turning ABBA off so that the voice

of the muezzin could be heard over modern noise.

I watched the Mediterranean Sea & said

its other name. I heard my name given a new

syllable. I sipped water on the morning

of the first day of the holy month

while the crescent pearled on the horizon.

I lived again on the Hijrah calendar.

It was a revolutionary year. I turned seven.