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Vénus Khoury-Ghata

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Five Poems from She Says

1.

For Pierre Brunel

There were too many women for too few seasons
some of them turned themselves into willows to sweep the rivers
A dead-end village
the inhabitants’ secrets were posted on swinging doors
the scent of wives handled in darkness impregnated the walls
No rain could erase it

The women existed through their fragrance
and the men had to search for them in the folds of sheets
in the stink of blood washed in copper pots

Monthly labor was the women’s lot
they scrubbed at roofs soiled by the moon’s excretions
and the menstrual blood of pubescent storks,
till they wore the roof-tiles down

It appears that the rainbow was born there
of the rain which came before Noah
a dry rain which dripped pebbles and small stones

And then everything was white
the grass children’s eyes the eyes of rabbits

 

Translated by Marilyn Hacker

Page(s) 92

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