"Tattoo" by Muhammad al-Maghut

 

Now, in the third hour of the twentieth century,
when only asphalt separates the corpses
from the shoes of pedestrians,
I’ll lie down in the middle of the street
like an old Bedouin, and won’t get up
unless the prison bars and files on the world’s suspects
are gathered
before me to chew on, like a camel at a crossroad;
unless the sticks of policemen and demonstrators
drop from their hands
and become again blooming branches
in the forest.
I laugh,
cry and write in the dark
until my pen is indistinguishable from my fingers.
Whenever I hear a knock on the door, or see a curtain move
I cover my papers with my hand
like a prostitute in a raid.
Whoever gave me this fear,
this blood apprehensive as a mountain panther’s?