YOUSSEF RAKHA
I see the republic’s flag itself fluttering above the heads of aliens and I know we will not defeat Israel My friend furious with the sleep in his eyes while the Hoover trunk slips under the bed When the mops and soap appear I have trouble keeping him off the maid: No point raping her now! Only the sound of the Hoover while he sobs, no blood or iron,
the parquet floor is empty and clean and where the books of poetry used to be on the shelves are bottles of Dettol and Pledge, sponges and neat, trellissed towels Suddenly my bed exhales to an armoured vehicle siren, the sheets catch fire and the mattress burns The table morphs into a fearsome lion roaring and my friend has disappeared, the writing on the wall: A PANTHER WHICH DURING SEX EJACULATES EVERY
TWENTY MINUTES, ITS TONGUE COARSER THAN SANDPAPER
O mournful lover, giver of the terminal orgasm: Death has knotted our lives I have seen the comers and the goers, kissed the Wahhabi beards and ran from the blade-wielding Remnants on the Metro steps I have carried the Saint into the darkness of the grave simply to reassure your father, nodded off between two compartments of the Cairo-wending train I have found you beneath my bed with the army of my mother in the room, I have surrendered my neck to the mouth of the lion.
Reworked by the author from the original Arabic
BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 37