I Had Seven Hankerchiefs

 
Translated by DENIS HIRSON

 

 
I had seven handkerchiefs
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

 

 
My mother put them away
in a drawer
between her own
and those of my father
mine were embroidered
with animals for each day
and week
and night
and the night after
one colour per day
Monday red Tuesday green Wednesday blue
Thursday black Friday yellow Saturday grey
and Sunday golden
you have your handkerchief
my mother explained to me
knotted at all four corners to cover your head
one knot in the corner
for you to remember
and then you can cry
and sometimes blow your nose
and when you leave
you can wave us goodbye

 

 
 
Sylvie Durbec’s recent publications include Marseille: éclats et quartiers (Marseille, fragments and quarters), which won the prestigious Jean Follain Prize of the City of Saint-Lô; Sanpatri (Nohomeland); Soutine; and L’idiot(e) devant la peinture (Idiot/I look at paintings). 

 

 
Denis Hirson was brought up in South Africa and lives just outside Paris, France; he teaches at the École Polytechnique. The latest of his seven books is the novel The Dancing and the Death on Lemon Street. He is also the editor of the 2014 anthology In the Heat of Shadows, South African poetry 1996–2013.

 

 
 
I Had Seven Hankerchiefs

Related Posts

cover of theft

What We’re Reading: March 2025

JAY BOSS RUBIN
To be denied the ability to determine one’s fate and fulfill one’s potential is sometimes a societal theft, sometimes an imperial one, sometimes both. But ambition that holds no regard for others is also a theft—a self-inflicted one.

Dispatches from Mullai Nilam, Marutha Nilam, and Neithal Nilam

VIJAYALAKSHMI
There is fire everywhere, / both inside and outside. / Unaware of the intensity of the fire, / they maintain silence / like the serenity of a corpse. / From the burning fire / bursts out a waterfall tainted in red. / All over the shores have bloomed / the flaming lilies of motherhood.

The view out of a car window as it speeds along

The Hare

ISMAEL RAMOS
It’s important to decide whether or not you want to be alone, Valeria says. It has to be a conscious decision, you know? Otherwise, you end up stuck like that, in limbo, not knowing what to do, thinking one day someone’s going to come and tell you exactly what you need to hear.