At Nouakchott’s reddened intersections,

Baseless arrogance behind each wheel

Pouring down pot-holed roads

Towards who knows what hazy occupations.

 

In an opulent interior in the capital’s

Island of riches, the pinched lips of the lady

In sumptuous brocade, hymn eternal litanies.

Her fingers, swollen with precious metal,

Can scarcely hide the ruby beneath the rug.

 

In the land of a million parp-parps,

Half a million xenon headlights

And billions of grains of sand,

Cursing god is interlaced

With litanies on the virtues of lust.

 

So much faith bound to the marrow of greed,

Between bloated accounts and stomachs!

So much bluster on account of morals,

Vacillating in its limbo of gold!

 

In the privacy of dusk

Blackened thoughts are heated white hot.

Return to solitude for clarity

But find the shadow cast there too.