Tosca
I heard those ripened, muted swoons, although
that was no kiss—a dagger sunk into my chest.
What use authority if it cannot impose
a hidden will? The songbird, let her muse
the painter in his cavern, his mettle at the test,
Translated by ALICE GUTHRIE
Regardless of how it turned out, the situation certainly demanded a courageous decision. I could no longer bear the chaos that had spread to all areas of my life—a life that I was constantly striving to keep in the best possible state of order.
In the village, we survey the damage:
every cedar lockbox smashed,
every pillow coated with blood, spit, snot.
The houses have crumbled.
By SARA ELKAMEL
1. They said that hiding in a pomegranate is a grain that opens the gates to heaven.
2. Habayet el-janna or grain of heaven.
Translated by MAIA TABET
As soon as he elbowed me in the ribs, whipping my averted face toward the pitch-black corner, I thought I heard him saying, “Frightened, eh?”
Truly, I was frightened.
By NED BALBO
For my adoptive mother Betty and her siblings
No matter where you vanished, you’re vanished still.
Astonished, pointing out your childhood face,
whatever I felt, I know I always will
By DIANE MEHTA
A sea-gap opens as surf crumbles
onto shifting sediment that pretends to be a beach
but has the bones of 13,000 years;
By GHALIB HALASA
Translated by THORAYA EL-RAYYES
At the borderland between the desert and the plains, Emirate of Transjordan, early twentieth century
Two men sat near the round threshing floor in the western fields. Each with his rifle on his lap. “What a goddamn year,” Tafish said. He had a skull-like face. Small, sunken, deep-set eyes. Emaciated cheeks with protruding cheekbones. A broad forehead with dark blue veins at the sides. Skin like an aged tortoise. His hair and lower jaw were hidden behind a white keffiyeh, held in place by a black fleece cord around his head. His frame was tall, straight, lithe. He rubbed his nose with his hand, letting a low whistle out of his nostrils. By the time he lowered his hand, a pensive expression of disgust had formed on his face. Staring straight ahead, he spoke, as if to himself: “What a goddamn year.”
By TEOW LIM GOH
Ten miles of concrete can bring you
to different places. Your feet carry you
across the ground, let you
Translated by ALICE GUTHRIE
Adam
As broken as a venial sin,
and as weary as the last to be created (or the first),
he looked to the sky, now become his ground.
Once he’d learned about naming and questioning, and saw what he saw of the blue corridors of space, he asked himself:
I wonder what the Throne is?
Did the Throne of the Almighty exist before water, or arise after water? And what is water, anyway?
Despairing, he smacked the trunk of the tree he was sitting under.
Don’t miss an issue! Subscribe to The Common.