To words poetry is unbeholden;
words strung like barbed wire.
They serve to secure, to control.
They adapt to the meaning that lies

on the border between us and out
there. An animal invades our sleep
like a mole roving in our gardens,
searching for words extinct.

Abu Shusha, Najd, Balad al-Shaykh,
Lubya, Kirbat al-Shuna, Wa'rat al-Sarris.

It cannot be named, except by this tongue,
in which it sits bound, locked up,
a threat to be smoked out of its den.

Poetry stands by, a minor unsettlement,
in which the animal becomes human again.