THE WOMAN:

The stars, the stars,
and a land without teachings, without chains, a land that does not know boundaries.
The stars release their gazelles in my clothes, they grow mad celebrating
my body, released on their land,
in the mist and in conjecture. And through the temptation of vanishing,
Is it a meteor approaching now? Does she see him limping
toward me?
O meteor seeking direction
I am like you now, I live
and have nothing except this bareness.

(Silence)

I will repeat what he says: it must be so.
What is it that must be? O liquid
that gushes between my thighs,
and you book that suffocates femininity
O pedants of Sunday, Friday, and Saturday, what is it that must be?
The belly of the day is a swelling indeed! And what of
these words that become divine on the lips of the wretched? And what of
you, breaker of words whose cleaver passed
between my body and my mother's? What must be?
Who, O cloth wet with my tears?
You planet searching for shade in the sands of Mecca?
On rock of Jerusalem,
what is it, what is it that must be?
The night driver tumbles, and the stars wince at his horses.
The stars are an explosion that comes and goes, my head the playground where it plays.

(Silence)

Translation: 2013, Khaled Mattawa