Poetry from NER 43.2 (2022)
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Translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah

Everything will melt 
at the bottom of childhood: 
the road is the salt.

If we empty the glass 
we won’t dissolve—salt 
will devise new noses 
to seek us out.

There’s another jug to life.
In their fear 
they hid it for us, left us 
to look for it.

There where reality’s proud of itself
and doesn’t age or melt

I observe myself: 
I adhere to falling things 
because they are fractures 
of butterflies in a race
God arranged.

And this love that talked so loudly 
is now ill? How
does it assess itself: 
as a human with 
or without exception?