The Concealment: Written by my secret and only friend, Cosmic, on the ship, while crossing the Red Sea

I was not allowed in school. ‘You’re such a fool!’ they said 
My garments were handmade and concealed me until
My nightly exposure at the evening show at the Palace of Amir.
No one can tell me where I was born, and I travel still
Never to know where my mother birthed me. I hear
She handed me to a slave and fled in fear.
Baabek, Isfahan, Ghadames, Hebron.
Rumors say it was in the Wadi Rum ‘The Valley of the Moon’
My black skin hints of Marrakesh.
Some say I must be Nubian from Wawat. 

All strange names to me.  Cosmic knows them all.
Cosmic, my cat, I found in Istanbul, or so he’s said.
He’s full of ancient spells in his eyes.
Draw close to feel them. 
They followed me on my mystic walk.

He’s my only friend, the one who knows who I really am.
We talk.
My friend has traveled oft in caravans, alleyways,
And into strange caves where hermits pray.

Our Arab troupe crossed into lands
Beyond what I am unable to know.
Veiled and concealed between shows,
They kept me in the closed cart free from male eyes.

I kept a secret rose a handsome young Egyptian threw me.
I would be stoned if anyone knew how it came my way
After a show in Cairo.
The young man slipped away
After he threw it so not to be caught.

I stay veiled until the dark oud mourns.
Men gather to stare.
They know what my magic is when concealment
Is manifest, and my belly twirls.

 C. S. Cholas, 29 September 2023
Ekphrastic poem
"Green Eyes” by Derrick Montez