about the author
Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Will Harris was born into a military family and spent most of his public school years outside the U.S., particularly in England and Germany. After serving two military staff tours in the Middle East, he left the military but returned to live in the United Arab Emirates. He and his wife visit the U.S. during the summer months. Will’s writing is forthcoming or has been published in African American Review, The Austin Writer, Cold Mountain Review, College Language Association Journal, Colorado-North Review, Eleventh Muse,
Existere, Mantis, MELUS, NEBULA, Reunion: The Dallas Review, Storyscape, The Trinity Review, Voices in English, Wascana Review, Writers’ Forum, and The Zora Neale Hurston Forum.
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Hemingway in Arabia
Will Harris
Alternative content
The women usually get to the point—
“His style is beautiful, he is easy to read,
and he does not like us.”
But males here claim him differently:
the two old men hugging the light and order
of a quiet, clean bar
in a country during a war
that both mean little to them.
When he mentions nihilism, despair,
they ask him about the copita
and why the old waiter did not want music.
When he says, because music makes you feel good
and helps you forget the focus on nothing,
while dignity and manliness require
that you face the nothing squarely,
they look at him—
for the only occasion he can remember in class—
with a silly Westerner look.
And he laughs—
Nada y pues nada means nothing to them.