Not as smart as Hal,
the computer in the car
is Hailey, as in
where the hail are we,
continuously trying
to send us back
to our original goal,
exit by perpetually
recalculated exit.
She never loses
her composure
although clearly
she has lost her mind.
Her voice is loud enough
to drown out
my new friend’s
softspoken inquiries,
my replies. Hailey
has no trouble
speaking up. She’s
unambiguous
in her wish
that we go back
to where we’ve been,
that we never
return home.
~
The man driving
the tourist tram
is John unless we
don’t like what he says,
in which case Jim.
Voice set to
a high-pitched squawk
frequently distorted
by the laughter
he cannot contain
as he relays
unending anecdotes
about the island’s
real estate,
its Wrigley
kings and queens.
Diesel chokes us
in the rear compartment
as we waggle
up and down
steep hills.
Atop Mount Ada
he predicts
a bitter future.
We snap
the glamorous view
of the harbor
far below,
hope he’s
content enough
for now
to drive us
safely down.
~
He went in
for a simple purpose:
papers so his marriage
could proceed. He’d been
to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul
other years for other reasons.
Jamal had every reason
to believe he’d come back out.
He had every reason to believe
he’d laugh again, this
burly gray-haired man
who’d claimed
the right to speak truth
as he saw it.
He couldn’t know
power waited there
to take apart
his life.
He was only
going where
he had to go
to shape
a happy future.
~
Most days I let
Hailey sleep.
Most days
I drive familiar
routes, as if
tracing lines
graven on the streets
and freeways.
From home
to office,
home to friends
and favorite haunts.
As if our world
is well-controlled
and nothing’s likely
to disrupt the paths
laid out. As if
there are no choices
and no random routes,
no bombs waiting
on the road ahead.
For Jamal Khashoggi, 1958-2018
Penelope Moffet’s poetry has been published in Natural Bridge, Permafrost, Levure Litteraire, Truthdig, Pearl, The Rise Up Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review and other literary journals. Her poems have also been included in What Wildness is This: Women Write about the Southwest (University of Texas Press, 2007) and Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles (Tia Chucha Press, 2016). She is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Keeping Still and It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You.
Image is a security camera footage still of Jamal Khasoggi and his fiance Hatice Cengiz exiting their apartment the day he disappeared at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
