At the end of the city, poems by Souzan Ali

Souzan Ali is a Syrian poet who lives in Damascus. Her debut collection of poetry The Woman in my Mouth was published by Mediterranean Press, 2017, in Italy. She has read her work widely throughout the Middle East, and she is also a noted playwright. Kohl Arabi – Arab Eyeliner won her the Gold Prize at the international theatre festival in Carthage, 2019. Souzan’s writing has been profoundly influenced by the war, which has been going on now for over a decade. She lost a brother to it, and she lives in fear daily. It is a great honour for me to publish some of Souzan’s poems here and which have been translated wonderfully by her fellow Syrian poet Osama Esber. These poems have been translated from Arabic by Osama Esber.

I

Once, in the summer, in the purple hot summer, I caressed my breasts with the grass of the slope. I went to lie down there using weak pretexts Which neither God nor the clouds could know. Like: I was bored in the house because my odor was dead. The pond’s frog watched my naked thighs. The gypsies passed with their sheep and smiled to me. I slept naked over the grass, caressed all the old footsteps. When my saliva became hot I heard my dad’s voice in the valley. I picked a leaf of fern and wiped my water with it and left. I glimpsed darkness lightly covering the grass calling me with another name.

II

One clothespin prevents my dress from falling. What if it falls over this speeding bus? Maybe the driver will give it to his sick wife. Or maybe, the driver is alone like me. Never mind! He will hug it or eat or tear it off. How to prevent the wind from taking my dress? It will fly and enter other houses there at the end of the city on the mountain’s slope or in an ivy tree there at the end of the street or in an empty tavern. What does this dress do in my house anyway? Did it change my way? Did it buy me medicine? Did it enter my dream one time? The stony church opens its window now. The fat nun yawns and scratches her thigh. While the sleeves of the dress flaps in the wind.

III

Wine, saints, white candles and night behind an old barn. The lamp in the hand of the guard was a star and the barking of footsteps was a shudder. I was holding a copybook in my hand and in yours there was a comb. Villages were twinkling buttons in the distance. This is the tattoo of my leg, a flower or a snake. This is a vein which I hate when it comes into view. Here is my small cottage. Don’t come closer in order not to cry. I want to see the clear sky to hear how the bellowing of the cow reaches the rivulet and returns alone. I want your breath to pass over the stones, the platanus tree, the well, the stoves’ steam, the roof of our house, the swing of my sister, the dress of our female neighbor, the clotheslines, thresholds. I want it to descend to the valley submissive, tired, hot and enter my small cottage.

© Souzan Ali/liveencounters.net