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July 2019

She is standing outside the hospital doors, clutching at the skin of her abdomen. She bends down to retch. The dusty heat is rising from the pavement. It is a little before six in the afternoon, the sun is still in the sky, but the shadows are long and the quality of light is grainy. It is the same quality of light as that of a partial eclipse. She will remember it like that, like an old photograph, grainy. He stands beside her, holding her hair back as she retches. He is nervous, sweating. In the car, she is almost hallucinating.

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I know Hened’s face. She’s looking at me: her eyes like pickled eggs, her pointy nose and thinning eyebrows magnified and hazed by the thumb marks on her eyeglasses. Hened’s second name is May. She is Egyptian. She is Lebanese. She is my grandaunt, the youngest and only surviving sibling of a family of four. She is eighty-five. I’m sitting next to her in the kitchen of my parent’s apartment. Her hands rest on the table next to a book with the word Valley in its title, a steaming cup of coffee she isn’t drinking, and a blank notepad. Her tiny face

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Christy scampered up the stairs of her front porch. Her long, frizzy black hair trailed behind her like her very own Superwoman cape as she swooshed past the front door and into the house. She ran up the stairs, kicked her bedroom door open, threw herself onto her snuggly blanket, and emptied the contents of her backpack onto her bed. She bit her pillow in delight as she stared at all the coins that were now scattered across the bed, along with a few candy wrappers and some glitter pens. Christy had put her favorite walking shoes onand taken a trip

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She painfully lifted her head up from the wooden table it had clumsily landed on a few hours ago, and stared up at the screen. "Would you like to contact a suicide operator?" read the Facebook message she had received. Her fingers rubbed at her eyes insistently; as if with every forced motion, a sense of clarity would somehow inject itself into her system. Frustrated, she rummaged through the chaos that had become her mind, trying desperately to restore its normal functioning. What the fuck is that? A scent had been pestering her, rendering her increasingly nauseous by the minute. She looked

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by Abu Nuwas, translated from the Arabic by Alex Rowell To the abandoned remains of a Drinking house they set out at dark Traces of wine pouches dragged along its soil And bouquets of basil, some moist, some parched I shut my friends inside, that they’d reunite And I was among them from the start And it was like I’d never known them Back in east Sabat’s remotest parts((A Persian city)) We spent a day, then another, then a third And not till the fifth did we depart Wine circulated in gilded cups Adorned with colourful Persian art On the base a Khosrau((A Persian king)), and on the sides An oryx speared by horsemen’s

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Poetry, Translations
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by Abu Nuwas, translated from the Arabic by Alex Rowell Cease your reproach, for reproach is only temptation And cure me with the very cause of my debilitation Saffron-coloured, no sorrow possible from it Even in stone would it inspire elation Poured from the palm of a girl dressed as boy An intrigue for one of any orientation She lifts the carafe against the black night Her face lit with brilliant radiation Sending from the jug’s lip a stream so bright That eyes, in its glare, close as in sedation Wine so fine, so pure and delicate To add water would be contamination With light alone may it be mixed Giving off dazzling illumination Passed

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Poetry, Translations
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by Abu Nuwas, translated from the Arabic by Alex Rowell Pay no heed to puritanical talk And drink of a northern-breeze-chilled rose Red wine, pure, proffering its scent Musk, with a hint of apple on the nose Were it to fill the depths of a glass It would beam as a lantern glows I pour again for my love, and kiss him Under night draped in monastic robes Till he sings, with head inclined: “O for the Hanna Monastery groves”((Much of the wine in Abu Nuwas’ time (c. 800 AD) was sourced from Christian (and Jewish) vintners, who were able to cultivate orchards on church land. “Hanna Monastery” was one

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Poetry, Translations
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for Joseph Delore   We are a mystery to our children— we befuddle them with our excitability, how we live waiting   for the other shoe to drop even when skies are clear, our summer days are calm   and our vines have tender shoots curling around the garden lattice. They humor us, thinking we don’t notice   the glazed indulgence in their beautiful eyes as we tell our stories—the euphoric nights   the grown men in our families downed shots of scotch, blessed themselves then danced the dabke,   hips as if disjointed, twirling their arms in the air like royalty then pulling our mothers off their kitchen chairs   with a rush of tender kisses, they twirled them heartbeat close until Joseph stopped suddenly—   held his oud

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it is not a sin to want to feel, everything, full and fervent. to feel the inside of my head. the tips, of my fingers, blistered, silver-lined edges of my palate, somehow, not enough. on their own, too benign, too blatantly refined. to become part of a crowd, to acquire a temporary taste of reality, of overlooked horizons, its satin folds I caress. undiscovered pleasures, saturated, rain drops. only to quench my thirst. voluntary heightened madness, to which I was not born. the forbidden fruit’s peeled back layers of the universe, I want to eat it whole. sweating, stepping out of my own silence, into a world

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Poetry
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When there is no tomorrow The happiest place on earth, or The last place you want to go is At the heart of the image, where Between love and madness lies obsession   When you care enough to send the very best Think big, or think small, for nothing is Impossible, just as impossible is nothing Make believe. Save money, live better Eat fresh. Twist the cap to refreshment and Reach out to touch someone   When the world zigs, zag Get N or get out. Expand your mind Change your world. Fly the friendly sky Share moments, share life Let your finger do the walking Just do it and have it your way   If you want to impress

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Poetry
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About Us
Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Art Journal was founded in the English Department of the American University of Beirut in 2012 with the intention of creating a space for both emerging and established writers who have a connection to Lebanon.
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