Above the gables and the lamps a hunter’s moon this winter,
clear as a lightbulb or a polished spoon this winter.
Awake at five, awake at six, awake at seven
the light is gone, and not returning soon this winter.
Spit in a cup, hold out your arm for the needle,
blow out hard as you can into a balloon this winter.
“To write a sonnet is a fascist act” –
Suggest that to the next tyre-burning goon this winter!
The slave girl stole the king’s mare and rode away –
write her أبيات, her canticle, her rune, this winter.
After you left, I didn’t know for the last time,
I listened to an exile play qanoun this winter.
Acedia, bronchitis, despair, nostalgia –
diseases to which I’m not immune this winter.
Oh, weren’t we once gallant and outrageous ?
Now we trade ailments on the phone, ya Mimijune, this winter.
Let’s say that the beloved’s name is Shams
For it is Shams I am بدون . this winter.
Marilyn Hacker
Marilyn Hacker is the author of seventeen poetry books as well as two written in collaboration with Deema K. Shehabi and with Karthika Naïr respectively. She has translated twenty-two books by French and Francophone poets including Samira Negrouche and Vénus Khoury-Ghata. She held the Edward Saïd Chair at the American University of Beirut in 2019-2020. She lives in Paris. Her most recent book is Calligraphies (W.W. Norton, 2023).
