Vénus Khoury-Ghata
Five Poems from She Says
3.
For Jean-Guy Pilon
The wind in the fig tree quiets down when she speaks
and speaks up when she’s silent
Once upon a time
she argued with an old man
quarrelled with dogs
bartered with a knife grinder
The bed and the salt-shaker can attest to it
not the wardrobe
mute guardian of linens
She howls to frighten her own voice and make the water in the pond
shudder
chases hawks to see their red cries unleash a storm
dumps out a drawer to hear the knives and forks swear at each other
To run up to the road is only good for her shadow
the rains have erased the fields
and the planet turning on itself will bring her back to her point of
departure
She knows the echo is no friend of hers
and the mountain hides another, older mountain
which wouldn’t greet a woman who talks to a tree till she’s out of breath
Translated by Marilyn Hacker
Page(s) 94
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The