I saw you in a body where stallions moan
and from whose arms storms emerge.
Abandoned to sighs
trampled by fillies with the whinnying of desire
and the infatuations of mating,
words issued from you like a reed tucked
between sadness and steel.

I saw you among a murdered race
storming with fire and broken glass.
A body raving with love,
a soul neglected by death.

KHALED MATTAWA was born in Libya in 1964 and emigrated to the USA when he was 15. In 1995-96 he was Alfred Hod der Fellow at Princeton University. In 1998 he was awarded a Guggenheim Po etry Fellowship, the first time ever to an Arab-American. Ilispoetry has appeared in many US magazines. He has translat ed many Arab poets into English and won the University of Arkansas Press Award for Arabic Literature in Transla tion.

(banebal)
Translated by Khaled Mattawa From Naqd aL-Amal. Dar aL-Kunooz al-Adabiya, Beirut 1998