Maram al-Massri
Selected Poems
[77]
2
How foolish: Whenever my heart hears a knocking, it opens its doors.
4
Women like me
do not know how to speak;
a word remains in their throats
like a thorn
they choose to swallow.
Women like me
know nothing except weeping,
impossible weeping
suddenly
pouring
like a severed artery. Women like me receive blows
and do not dare return them.
They shake with anger;
they subdue it.
Like a lion in a cage
women like me
dream...
of freedom ...
VOLUME 4 | 2011 | SPECIAL ISSUE
Maram al-Massri
[78]
20
I killed my father
that night
or the other day —
I don't remember.
I go escaping with a suitcase
filled with dreams
and amnesia,
and a picture of me
with him
when I was young
and when he carried me
on his forearm.
I buried my father in a beautiful shell in a deep ocean, but he found me hiding under the bed shaking with fear and loneliness
J0
Help me my kind husband close this porthole that has opened on the highest wall of my chest.
Stop me
my wise husband from climbing the high-heels of my femininity, for there
IJEMS
Maram al-Massri
at the crossroads a young man awaits me.
39	[79]
From time to time he opened the windows, and every now and then he closed them. His silhouette betrayed him behind his curtains as he came and went, his movements far and near. He turned up the radio to fill his solitude with music
deceiving the neighbors that all was well. We used to see him passing by quickly, his head downcast, carrying his bread and returning to where
no one waited for him.
40
He wanted no more than this: a house, children and a wife who loves him.
VOLUME 4 | 2011 | SPECIAL ISSUE
[8o]
Maram al-Massri
But he woke up one day and found that his spirit had grown old.
She wants
not more than this:
a house and children
and a husband who loves her.
She woke up
one day
and found
that her spirit
had opened a window
and fled.
J2
He came to me
disguised in the body of a man and I paid him no attention. He told me 'Open!
I am the Holy Ghost.' I feared disobeying him and I let him kiss me. He uncovered my shy breasts with his gaze and turned me into a beautiful woman. Then he blew his spirit into my body, rumbling
thunder and lightning. And I believed.
IJEMS
Maram al-Massri
51
You should not have touched my hand
and left it dreaming	[8j]
of your touch.
You should not have kissed my lips and left them burning for your crush.
You should have remained quiet so that I would not stop hoping.
69
The new dresses I bought did not help, nor the warm looks
I tossed at him.
My loving words did not help
nor Ovid's counsel.
Not even my long black hair,
or my soft glowing skin.
My lust did not help
nor my sweetness
or my smiles and tears
to soften
the hard heart
of love.
VOLUME 4 | 2011 | SPECIAL ISSUE
Maram al-Massri
[82]
103
Like grains of salt they shone then melted.
This is how they disappeared those men
who did not love me.
104
I am out in the cold and in the dark. Why don't you open the door of your shirt to me.
Translated by Khaled Mattawa
/"v/^v/^v/^v/^v/v ijems