Poems by Carrie Etter 

What’s Marrakech Like? 
 
for S.B.
 
she asked, and I, 
gathering, did not at once
email back but thought of
Jemma el-Fnaa square,
where small boys wave 
tissue packets to sell 
though the practice is
to give the child coin,
not take the goods;
where thin men offer
watches, paintings, cigarettes,
carved camels, wool caps, 
and the way to Bahia Palace;
where stray cats circle
diners’ feet; where old 
and older beggars 
stagger, one palm out;
where in passing a young 
man remarks nice bobs; 
where if a woman sits 
behind a piece of cloth
covered in her wares
a man will emerge 
to talk about price; 
where the seating
of tourists at a food stall
inspires the staff to a round 
of self-gratulatory applause;
where English catchphrases--
“Stall 107—our food is heaven!”--
are meant to be
bad enough for a laugh;
where men draw wooden carts
like horses; where horses
have neither excess fat nor
majesty; where I was a reservoir
of money, an infidel, a mosquito--
only the moment’s nuisance.

          Previously published in The Weather in Normal

American expatriate Carrie Etter has lived in England since 2001 and teaches creative writing at the University of Bristol. She has published four collections, most recently The Weather in Normal (UK: Seren; US: Station Hill, 2018), and edited Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets (Shearsman, 2010) and former student Linda Lamus’s posthumous collection, A Crater the Size of Calcutta (Mulfran, 2015). Individual poems have appeared in Boston Review, The Guardian, The New Republic, The New Statesman, The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem, Poetry Review, and The Times Literary Supplement. She also writes short fiction, essays, and reviews. 

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