The Apprentice's Masterpiece by Melanie Little Page A

pages.
Here’s what he says:
    The lily and rose always rise once again
in the spring, but to what purpose?
Nothing is permanent.
    Including Ramon’s knife—my sole weapon—
and the few coins I’d saved, so it seems.
Much help you are, only friend.

Blank Pages
    On the sixth day each week, we stop.
Jews must not work on their Sabbath.
And they certainly can’t
carry cartloads of weapons!
    â€œWhat if those bandits come back on your Sabbath?” I ask them.
“May you defend yourselves if attacked?”
    This starts a debate that lasts through the night.
I soon give up trying to follow its turns.
I dig out the quill from my new leather satchel.
Both are gifts from the Jews, who pitied my loss.
    I open Hafiz.
There are pages left blank at the back of the book.
Perhaps, Allah willing, I’ll write.

Rooster
    Allah, there’s so much that’s odd going on in your world.
    If I could get you to come for a talk,
it would be a long one.
    But I’d have to start somewhere.
So here’s what is on my mind now.
    Why are the nights so terribly long?
    The men say it’s foolish to travel in darkness.
We’re too easy prey for the bandits who hide
in the mountains nearby.
So we camp, and we sleep. Or we try.
    Though the days now grow longer with summer’s advent
the nights, too, seem to stretch.
The men grow bored, and then restless.
They drink and they fight.
I also do battle,
but my jousts are with words.
The men call me “rooster” for my scratching quill.
    Nothing I try turns out right.
The book’s few blank pages are taking a beating.
The parchment is thin as gossamer now
from the scraping and changing I’ve done.
    In all these cartloads of equipment, not one pumice stone!
I’ve only the rocks that I find on the ground
with which to erase.
They’re no match for my scores of misrhymes
and mistakes.
    Hafiz, there’s one thing, in all your complaints,
you’ve forgotten to say.
    Poetry is hard!

Friend (3)
    Sol—the button-nosed one—
must want to be friends.
    He shows me a sketch of his wife—it’s quite good.
He boasts of his sons. He has sons?
He doesn’t seem all that much older than me.
    Sol asks no questions, but it’s more than clear.
He hopes that I’ll crack.
A pomegranate, withholding my seeds.
All that it takes is the tap of the spoon
on the skin.
    I’m touched by his kindness.
But I don’t open up.
    I’ve lost the talent for friendship, I think.
And maybe the taste.

Friend (4)
    One time we played
a great game of tag,
just like boys half our age.
    Ramon and I ran and we ran
through our quarter.
Down blind alleys and skinny lanes.
Across every bridge that we saw.
We wound up in places we’d only heard of—
and some that we hadn’t.
    Cordoba’s streets wind and turn
like knots in the hair of Medusa.
It was fun.
    Ramon won.
(I half let him, knowing his pride.
Nothing is too small
to irk it.)
    â€œThat, my friend,
was an excellent game,”
Ramon said.
    My friend .
    Is such a word real
when one man is free
and the other is not?

Chains
    Some of these Jews
can read very well.
A few, even bits
of Arabic. Under the caliphs,
Jews spoke that language
nearly as well as the Muslims.
Words here and there were passed on.
    One of these men asks to borrow Hafiz.
I’m ashamed at how loath to share him I am.
For help, I remember
how quick Papa was to loan out his books.
    The first man who bought me, Señor Barico,
was decent enough. He neither flogged me
nor kept my legs chained. Not like some.
    But he did chain his books.
He must have owned hundreds.
I never touched one.
He slept with his favorites
as though they were pillows.
    Señor Barico struck me only once.
I had set down his cup
too close to a book.
    â€œDimwit!” he boomed.
“Never put water where it could be spilled
and run the ink!”
    After, he was sorry.
“I know you can’t love
books as I