Poems
Translated by: Reem Ghanayem
I am still the same boy
who pretends to cover his ears
in the face of the fireworks
That were thrown under his feet by his loved ones and friends
And he had to laugh in their faces
After they exploded in the air next to him
If my life were
Less lead and fires
I would not think of a picture of an explosive belt
Except for the way you turn your bra to your waist
to take it off
The boy whose family was bombed
Played far from the yard of the house
Didn’t know the war had an aeroplane.
Now he sits
in his wheelchair
and thinks all the dust is from the chalks
he drew his kite with
In your distant city
War dances on corpses, corpses and house dust
And when you jump up from the noise of bombing,
I wake up in another city, with signs of torture
on my body
I still prefer bowling in the neighbourhoods
over closed showrooms
during Saturday and Sunday in Europe
I want the empty plastic bottles
and the discarded pile of sand
at their edges
I want to make a cross with a rubber ball
On the backs of friends who have run away