What Would I Say to Him

What would I say to him

For you my best friend Rosie

What would I tell him if he came asking me
If I still do love him or not?
What would I say: if his fingers
Gather and caress my hair?
how I allow him approaching by his seat
And let his arms on my waist sleep?
Tomorrow.. if he would come.. I'll give him his letters
And feed the fire with our sweetest words
My love! Am I really his love?
Should I believe after forsaking me, his allegation?
Hasn't over my story with him for a long time?
Hasn't melted away the sun lines of his memory?
Have not we broken the glasses of love before?
And how now we shed tears for a broken glass?
My God.. his little objects are torturing me
How I escape from the big things?
Here is his newspaper in the corner left out
This is a book.. we had raed it
On the seats the ends of his cigarettes
In the corners.. the rest of his remains.
Why I look into the mirror.. asking it
By which dress I meet him?
Do I pretend I do not love him?
And how I don't love who dwells in my eyelids?
How I escape from him? He's my fate
Can the river change its course?
I love him.. I do not know why loving him
Even his faults are no longer his faults
Love on earth.. is some of our immagination
If we didn't find it.. we would create it
What should I tell him if he came asking me
If I still love him.. I love'm thousnads of times.

Nizar Quabani. Tr B.N 2007

This poem was sent to me by my best friend Noureddine from Algeria. He is a poet and a translator.