Wolves, Also
When it was close and had found its way . . .
the sound of its breathing
and the scent by the door told of it.
When it was close and had found its way . . .
the sound of its breathing
and the scent by the door told of it.
Someone’s footsteps walked by
before it lunged.
. . . and everything here has disappeared
you and the others,
the distant clothes and those who were sitting
the few flowers in the pot
the color of wine
the poem:
the enemy comes to drink our tea at night
and leans his Tommy submachine on the wall . . .
The poem
was it Darwish’s
did he say: submachine or rifle?
The enemy’s daughter was in the shadows
she had thick eyebrows . . . she had the taste of a slow river,
a voice sprinting out of sleep and a scent of leaving.
The visitors disappeared,
their notebooks under them disappeared in dense fog,
the actor in the death scene
before the end
and the Jazz song
in a club whose name is no longer clear
on a Saturday night in Memphis . . .
the way coats looked while hanging behind the side door . . .
and the wolves kept howling at me
Ghassan Zaqtan is a Palestinian poet, novelist, playwright, and editor. Born in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, he is a strong supporter of the Palestinian liberation movement. In 2013, his collection of poetry, Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, translated by Fady Joudah, was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize, and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas awarded him the National Medal of Honor for his many contributions to Palestinian literature.
Fady Joudah is a poet, translator, physician, and field member with Doctors Without Borders. Born in Austin, Texas, to Palestinian refugees, he is an award-winning translator of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Zaqtan, among others. In addition, he has published the poetry collections The Earth in the Attic (2008) and Alight (2013), and Textu (2013), an e-book of short poems composed on a cell phone.
