Two Percent

My sister loved Egypt as only a young girl can,

But Egypt of the Pharaohs!

Nothing more recent than Alexander,

All arts and culture,

Nothing to do with the masses.

 

What about the slaves, I asked her.

The workers who built the pyramids,

The fellaheen, up to their knees in the Nile,

My sister only smiled,

I’m only interested in the Saving Two percent, she said,

Who live for art.

 

So when we met good Doctor al-Bishiri,

At a cocktail party in New York City,

I kept glancing at my sister chattering away,

About Ancient Egypt and explaining it all to him,

Through the rising fumes of his patient cigarette,

 

And wondered what she could make of this real Egyptian,

Comfortably rotund in his three piece suit,

The warm, humorous, forgiving eyes,

Even, perhaps, an ancient understanding.

 

He’s an educated man, my sister said later,

Hardly a stranger, he teaches at Columbia,

One of the Saving Two Percent I’m sure!

Which is why, regardless, I can love my sister,

Always graciously willing to make an exception.