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Maram al-Massri - 4 poems
3
Desire enflames me
and my eyes glimmer
I stuff morals
in the nearest drawer
I turn into a devil
and blindfold my angels
just
for a kiss
5
I wait,
but what do I wait for?
A man who brings me flowers
and sweet words
A man
who looks at me and sees me
He talks to me
and listens to me.
A man who weeps
for me
and I pity him
and I love him
20
I killed my father
that night
or the other day—
I don’t remember
I escape with a suitcase
filled with dreams
and amnesia
and a picture of me
with him
when I was a child
and when he carried me
on his forearm
I buried my father
in a beautiful shell
in a deep ocean
but he found me
hiding under the bed
shaking with fear
and loneliness
39
From time to time
he opened the windows
and every now and then
he closed them
His silhouette
betrayed him
behind his curtains
as he came and went
his travels
far and near
He turned up the radio
to fill his solitude
with music
deceiving the neighbors
that all was well
We used to see him
hurrying past
his head downcast
carrying his bread
and returning
to where
no one waited for him
Translated by Khaled Mattawa
Maram al-Massri is from Lattakia in Syria, now settled in Paris. She studied English Literature at Damascus University before starting publishing her poetry in Arab magazines in the 1970s. Her second collection won the Adonis Prize for Poetry in 1997. Some of her work has been published in French, and in 2004 a bilingual Arabic-English collection was published by Bloodaxe. The poems in A Red Cherry on a White-tiled Floor were translated by Khaled Mattaw.
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All Good Things - Jobe
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