The Radio Still Loves You

(a radio dial searching static, then a nylon guitar finds the station)
Nine o'clock, and every radio
leans into the same voice.
The street begins its humming —
the radio still loves you. So do I.

There's a cassette with your handwriting,
the one we cut that first July —
just your voice and my two spoons
keeping time on the tabletop.
Now they play you every evening,
and strangers whistle in the stairwell
the tune you wrote barefoot on my tiles.

Fame is a kind of weather,
it falls on everyone —
but one roof heard the first drops,
and that roof is my own.

The radio still loves you,
the market stalls sing along.
The whole town knows your chorus —
I knew you before the song.

You changed one line for the record —
where it used to say my street,
now it says "a town I came from."
I sing the old words when it plays.

The radio still loves you,
the market stalls sing along.
The whole town knows your chorus —
I knew you before the song.

(a distant filtered female voice drifts one wordless line over a low oud)

I could turn the dial, habibti.
I never turn the dial.
Every night at nine, your verses
fill this kitchen for a while.
The spoons still keep the rhythm.
Some encores are private.

(warmer strings, the filtered voice far behind)
The radio still loves you, (still loves you)
the market stalls sing along.
The whole town knows your chorus —
I knew you before the song.

(the dial clicks off, two spoon taps, room silence)
Goodnight, superstar. Same time tomorrow.
The radio still loves you.