Woman In The Red Hijab

A poem by R.M. Dolin, April 2026

Woman In The Red Hijab

They calmly roll through the quiet town to
the painted cinderblock truck stop where chaos
of parking lot gravel transitions
to carefully laid out rows of tall country corn.
A boy, his uncle, their vintage Harley,
and a caravan of big rigs idling side-by-side like
carnival cargo waiting to rediscover
their next new destiny. It’s the kind of place where
you lift the handle of the self-serve gas pump
and only after pay inside.

The waitress in a gold linen dress, white apron,
and heavy-soled shoes, calls them ‘hon‘ and
says they can sit anywhere even though
she knows their destiny awaits at the counter.
In a promise never broken,
the boy vows to not tell his mom about
drinking chocolate milk while a trucker
shows him the proper way to poke holes in pancakes
so syrup better soaks in.
He won’t tell her because
he doesn’t want her to cry
and lately, everything makes her cry.

He never mentions the men on motorcycles
who wipe road dust off their leathers
as they take the remaining counter seats.
The biker plopping down next to the boy is a giant;
his hair is rough, his beard unkempt,
and the boy isn’t sure he shouldn’t be afraid.

When the giant catches him
staring at a forearm tattoo,
his lips tighten around
monster scary tobacco-stained teeth
capable of tearing apart flesh with the ease
of eating syrup soaked pancakes.
But then, the monster softens to a smile
while rolling up the sleeve on his other arm.
He points to a colorful tattoo of
a beautiful Berber woman in a red hijab.
Her hidden face revealing seductively shaped
almond eyes of limestone green
highlighted by mysterious indigo shadows
made more pronounced by
long black lashes and reflectively sad tears
puddling in the corners.

“This one’s my favorite,” the giant confesses
in a lonesome way unknown to the boy
but unmistakable to every man at the counter.
“It’s to remember the woman
I’ll never forget.”
The giant lowers his head to reveal
an essential secret
boy’s have no hope of understanding
but will someday painfully learn is often repeated.
“The thing is,”
the giant shares with hard-earned wisdom,
“if you love someone strong enough
for long enough,
they’ll break your heart.”

The road weary traveler in dusty leather
with an unkept beard
looks at the boy through deeply
piercing eyes as he bares his soul,
“just because they don’t love you,
don’t mean you don’t love them. . .
and maybe if you’re lucky,
you’re able to convince yourself,
they once did. . .
and maybe will again.”

From chapter seven of the R.M. Dolin novel, “An Unsustainable life – The Book of Issac.” Issac recalls a ride into the Wisconsin countryside he took with his Uncle Darwin on his uncle’s vintage Harley when Issac was ten. When they pull in at a small town truck stop, essential life lessons men accumulate through difficult and often bitter travels are revealed in a spoken tradition as old as man himself.

Inspiration for this poem came from a visit to an ancient oasis in the Moroccan Sahara called Aït Benhaddou (where the movie Gladiator was filmed). An artist used natural dye paints that were invisible on the paper as he worked. He would heat the back of the blank paper once his painting was complete to compel the colors to appear as if by magic. The artist had a small painting of a Berber woman in a red hijab hanging on the wall of his 1,000 year old adobe that was so seductively enchanting it haunted me for days until finally I wrote this poem. I regret not buying the painting, but I’m traveling through the desert with a backpack and have no place to safely store it. The artist used saffron for his red paint, alfalfa for green, sugar water for black, and indigofera legumes for blue. He’d burn the paper from beneath using a lighter once his painting was done and the heat would both fix the colors and magically make them beautifully vibrant. Painting an invisible object is an ancient art that was used long ago to send secret messages during the era when indigenous Berbers were struggling to retain their homeland. Berbers still struggle today to protect and hold on to what little remains of their homeland, but now, invisible dye messages have been replaced by more modern means of clandestine communication.