have you still kept that knife?
don't rinse off the blood. i still can hear that sweet groan.
you wrote in the pages of the book of love. late at nights, we'd read
the instant our raging blood boiled and gushed together
with hurried, impatient breath.

you take pleasure in being defenceless.
just like the fish that you've kept inside your womb -
flailing about within the pulverising strength of desire
and, the mysterious and delicate moans of your opened mouth.

have you still kept that knife?
before you arrive at the height of love, thousands of women
will unsheathe and stab you with it - wherever at the pit
of your body and on any congealed meat.

Translated by Mona Zahra Attamimi