She called me Peugeot because for her I was 306

If I had another daughter
I’d call her Algeria,
and you would doff your colonial hats to me
and call me “Abu Algeria.”
In the morning, when she opened her chocolate eyes
I would say: “Now Africa is waking up,”
and she would caress the blonde on her sister’s head
certain that she had rediscovered gold.
The grains on the seashore would be her sandbox
and in the footprints of the French who fled from there
she would hide the dates that dropped from the trees.
”Algeria,” I would clasp the railing of the balcony and call to her:
”Algeria, come home, and see how I’m painting the eastern wall
with the brush of the Sun.”