Ghorba ghosts
prepared by R22 April Guest Editor Massoud Hayyoun
Delirious, I am laid to rest in the clavicle of a bird
whose remaining body is a ghost. In the next life,
death has the sense not to creep around me, breathe
my air. Bright, bright this new world
and ugly. To have been taught nothing remains of my body
and still, my limbs. What to make of no one watching?
No rush, nothing to return to by a mildewed grief.
Here, there is space. There is space and nothing will fill it.
Some days, I dream no one is watching. I dream I am small,
standing beneath the rim of a greying sky. My supine body
a willow leaf carried in the quivering wind. All I wanted was to be left
alone, to drive a beautiful car, to veer to the edge
and quiver against a beloved’s body
Some days, I dream no one is watching. I dream I am small,
standing beneath the rim of a greying sky. My supine body
a willow leaf carried in the quivering wind. All I wanted was to be left
alone, to drive a beautiful car, to veer to the edge
and quiver against a beloved’s body. Instead, I am rosined
into the earth, brittle as bone. Someone’s look
what happens when you…Look what happens!
How many have died in my name an inherited death.
I touch their rosined bodies now, their old loves
the amber that fills them. There is everything here
and no one is watching.
رصيف22 منظمة غير ربحية. الأموال التي نجمعها من ناس رصيف، والتمويل المؤسسي، يذهبان مباشرةً إلى دعم عملنا الصحافي. نحن لا نحصل على تمويل من الشركات الكبرى، أو تمويل سياسي، ولا ننشر محتوى مدفوعاً.
لدعم صحافتنا المعنية بالشأن العام أولاً، ولتبقى صفحاتنا متاحةً لكل القرّاء، انقر هنا.
