The Balcony Poem by Fatima Naoot

This is my chair
You
Know how to jump over the red lines.
An ash tray and a switched-off mobile
And in your bag
Airports
And trains
And knitted robes
Man is not like woman!
A single chair in the corner of a dark balcony
And a lot of windows watch me.
I sit here
I pass my palm on my forehead
To empty my eyes from events
I keep your eyeglasses
My mother's shawl
The dress of the little girl who was consumed by cancer
And my brother's ruler
Who was exhausted by searching for some lost millimeters
I keep all of them
In the garden of the family house
So that the cut in my head will be complete.
You are a woman of many details
And I
A silent man
Throwing stones in the noise of the world.
This is my bookcase
I used a jungle of rosewood
The wood was used up
So I made your bookcase with ivory
Then I sat down
Tidying your piles of papers
And love letters.
Searching for the ‘Book of Death' will need a month
Take ‘The Prophet'
To measure how thick the darkness in history notebooks
And take ‘The Odyssey'
To measure how callous my feet are
And take ‘The Capital'
And count the salt of the earth
And wipe my white forehead
With your white palm
And cover the sun with the other one.
This is my desk
My many eyes under its sheet of glass
Do not look at you as you think
But to the lens of the old photographer
Who used to sleep in Marcella's park
And the paper
Looking out of the drawer now
Does not intend to commit suicide, not at all,
But it leaps out to breathe.
And by the way
This is not my next poem about you
But an indictment of a poet loving his country.
The lamp on my desk
Must be hit at the back to work
A woman!
Looks like a willow sleeping at the village brook.
Here are my necklaces and medals
The day before yesterday
Was the anniversary of my coronation
They distributed souvenirs and flowers
And flew colourful balloons
But I was not there.
And here is a sparrow
On a swing
It was inside a cage like all the people
And we took it out when it
stopped singing
And it became
Just a silent sparrow
On a swing.
Here is the old sofa from Asiut
A hair from you hangs to it
The Marines walked on it when they poisoned Diglah
Since that day
Dust has not left
Neither has loneliness.
And this is my bed
Broad
Broooaaad!
Its sheet has been white for two decades.
My daughters in the next room
Are not there
I dispersed them everywhere
I do not see
The youngest one who looks like you
Was melted in the medicine cup
As I was sleeping
Like your free half that was melted, too.
Man is not like a woman
Women know a flower
And men
Do not even realize it
Before it melts between their
fingers
Leaving behind its scent
So one of them says:
There was a flower here!
These are clothes-lines
Loose
My coats and jackets are heavy with women's problems
Like you, they practiced
Swallowing arsenic
And accompanying Kafka.
This is a mirror
A sheet of reflective glass
Within a frame of walnut wood
Nothing in it worthy of talking about
Just a man and a woman
About to shake hands
Then depart
Each will forget the other's features tomorrow
And the memory of the glass will remain
Waiting for a new woman
Who hates noise, like you,
And knows how to jump over the red lines.
Oh, goddess of the little things
Take off your watch
And throw it on the ground
next to mine
Because the evil hands -as you see-
Are moving.
Is my name carved on the house door?
That means nothing except
A name is carved on a house door!
For each house needs a man's name
Even if he was a poet
Occupying the house
Nothing but a single chair
In a dark corner.
Come
And sit next to me
Tomorrow, I'll buy another chair
But I
Will remain lonely.