Postcards from the Underworld, Sinan Antoon

Psalm

In the beginning was the stab

The dagger made the wound

in its own image

then went away

 

searching

for another body

 

The wound wept

for forty days

then healed

 

It became a heart

and crawled away

 

searching

for another body

 

 

The New God

We looked at the map

All those rivers we had crossed

searching for that new god

the priests said

he was born for our sake

When we reached his homeland

We found crowds

marching in his funeral procession

We joined them

They told us

of all those rivers they had crossed

searching for the new god

the priests said

he had died for their sake

 

 

From Eve’s Confessions

 

I was the voice of the wind

and when it grew tired

I descended from its ribs

and left it

weeping everywhere

for me

 

I walked on water

a thousand years

then created myself

on the earth’s skin

and when I was bored

I made Adam

God was a mere game we played

 

 

In My Next Life

 

In my next life

I will not be I

 

I will be a wild flower

Lying on the slope of a distant hill

butterflies will alight on it

A child who never lived through war

will pluck it

and take it to his mother

will place it between her breasts

She will kiss him

and smell me

and I will smell her

 

. . .

 

In my next life

I will not be

 

 

 

Sifting

 

My eyes

are two sieves

sifting

through piles of others

for you

 

Cairo, August 2003