Love – Alia Serouji

Love

Our cut fingers block the nose of ugliness

Our punctured water skins on the sand

Our iced bodies in the cups of friends

who spread our photos denuded of their kisses

Love is the butterfly that divided my forehead in half and

the sea that parted my lungs to let a ship pass

loaded with hydrogen

And when the sea was healed

it drowned the sparrows that nested

in two babyish bosoms

And I did remember you as the spears devoured me

And the Indian swords dripped with my blood

I wanted to kiss the swords because

they shone as bright as your smiling mouth

inscribed

like a hangman’s rope

from which hangs the moon

on the shoulder of Medusa who chose a man

who laughs, so the serpents move in the tunnel

cries, and the crocodile teeth are exposed

The music drags out its wail

like an army lost in a desert made of water

poured by gods whenever Medusa devours a man who lusts after her face

Love

Elegant wolves wearing red necklaces

on their necks

Hauled by the celestial realm from the highest heavens

And all the devils of the earth open

up the corridors for them

 

Translation by Ahmed Salah Eldein