^{translated from the Arabic by Ghayde Ghraowi}

The soul departing from trees of speech
Does not want to ascend 
Nor to be buried; 
It wants to finish reading.
..
My heart is a stone that stumbled in the dirt and broke apart 
..
O the mud of the storm, 
heavy, it drags my soul 
From one tavern to another

My hand is a cage that forgot to lock its door
So speech flew away
..
I am made of music 
That departs on an evening jaunt 
To the garden of the unknown 
..
Wherever my sorrow comes to preside
Mud is my door  

Outside the blathering cemetery
a lone word was lost 
And began to limp 
..
My garden throne was forlorn; 
peopled with memories 
..
My heart, 
a garden filled with thrones

The signal was green 
We crossed the road to eternity 
In familiar forms of transportation 
..
In the furor of death
A new tree sprouted 
In fine script
..
Its scent is like infirmity, 
This soul

It was as it must be
I was as I must be
But we did not agree 
..
In a hefty handbag
I abandoned my superstition.  
The soul travels, rising, falling  
From an expensive handbag 
Out leaks my mud
..
Who can direct me toward mud that resembles my dust.

1

Like any Messiah taken unaware by death

I saw my father                he was nodding to the palms, surrendered

To his sweet sad songs, was greeting

Happily the doves which settled on his shoulder

Alone     no shadow to soften his loneliness 

Alone the clouds    were praying to him

And I was calling    Father! Death is colder than a cup of water on my body, and

Fonder to me than sand

Father    the water surrounds me with longing and there is no time to shame the night 

With light, and melancholy with memories

2

My father, answering

What is gone     is gone

3

Prepare your exiles for the hard years, turn absence 

Into silver ribbons through your hair

Push your hands into the pockets of your shirt

Out comes your country 

Brimming ashes, fragment-crammed

4

Father     the directions have exhausted me

5

My father, saying  

What is gone     is gone

6

Distance has left me limp, father

Hunger is complete with me

And I am full with all the countries that threw me 

A babe into the river

This longing is no great thing to me

Earth switched on me, the skies

Are not the skies

No light to guard me     for distance betrays

No wind to bear me    for the clouds they age

Between my shadow and me / the butterflies    

Enchanted by the poems and the songs

7

My father, saying  

What is gone     is gone

8

Neither will the butterflies restore childhood to the water

Nor mother tongue loan you its ABC names

Nor dream pack your soul with clouds    Nor poetry, nor hopes

9

Like any Messiah taken unaware by death         My father

It was not a dream I saw, it was 

Reading the secret of drought on the palms

It was too much for poetry          but no great thing to death

I was calling to him: Father of wind

Father of water

Father of night

Father of hunger

                                      Father of death

                 Father of death

Father of death 

Surrendered to his sad yearning songs

Greeting the doves 

Which settled on his shoulders

Like any Messiah taken unaware by death

My father, saying

Be not afraid. Of mortal flesh is Man

Of mortal flesh is every son

Of Adam

What is gone     is gone

Vass Valley. Fall 1920

(Aslat the dead)

You left me 

on the Swede’s farm

alone and wrapped

in my large kolt

-

I didn’t stay there

-

One fall and one winter

we cried together

Then you joined

the herd and

left

As for me I spread

my kolt into wings

and flew away

blood drained 

from my body and

vanished

-

I couldn’t stay

Where I had fallen

never to rise

again

-

Did you feel me Father

blowing across the sea

Didn’t you hear me

Among the sea birds

when you arrived 

with your summer-fattened

reindeer

-

I was the lone

strand from the reindeer’s coat

gliding across the surface of the sea

in the bay by

the reindeer’s swimming spot

-

And the pretty hill

in the fall-summer sun

Where the herd 

had to find its own way

down the rocks

Until thick fog rolled in

And it was

impossible to see

the pitch of the slope

-

I was the forest 

thickening

around the great

forest way

hewn 

in olden times

-

Where your lead reindeer

cleaned its horns

Did you feel it Mother

in your hand

that long while you spent

milking the tame cow

who then disappeared

among the trees

-

To search for lichen

and mushrooms and lick

urine from the ground

-

I was the weight

in the stone you brought

back from the coast

to place on 

my grave

One stone each summer

you carry home

to the winterland

Nila and you

-

Mother you caress

that scar on my

brother’s forehead

as though it were a

whisper from me

-

Because I once

threw a wooden log 

at him

that hit right there

Nila when I fell

-

You continued

to treat me

the same

as though I

hadn’t changed

-

The same old

slow smile

while my head quietly

wanted to roll back

into place

deep between my shoulders

Nila did you feel that

I was the movement

under the boat

in the mountain lake where

Mother and you

spread the nets

-

Did you catch

my gaze

in the eye of the storm

-

I stood on a branch

my legs were like 

sticks

When the wind bent

back the yellowing

leaves

I saw strange mountains

with roaring rivers

-

And I flew over

the boat and called

to you:

There will be rain

there will be rain

Dápmotjávri. Aslat’s grave. Karesuando Cemetery.

Fall–Winter 1920

(Ber-Joná)

That fall

the Lapp Bailiff came

-

The ruling language

ran over us

Swedish words

impossible to pronounce

-

They pushed in

through our clothes

coated our skin

-

-

The needling gaze

a rain through

all that one loves

-

Dirty were we

living with dogs

half-nomads who

followed after livestock

-

Bread so tough it 

made your teeth fall out

baked by our women

-

In the midst of the breeding grounds

he appeared

with the darkening sky

To hold forth

among our

cows in heat

-

He had a message

from the three 

countries’ men

Swedes Norwegians

and Finns

-

Far away from 

the reindeer’s world several

families had been selected

We had to start forcing

our herds to graze on

strange lands

We were to be driven

from the forests mountains

and lakes

Migration paths and songs

had to be stifled

stricken from memory

-

The herd’s memory

the reindeer calves’ legs

that always

led us home

-

Now they would be born 

on other lands

Now each step

homeward in autumn

was a departure from

our lives

-

My brother and the others

said farewell to the trails

and hillsides

-

Never again would

we sit on the island’s slope

where the ocean smoothed

the stones

where Aslat once

had learned to walk

With this my stomach 

tied itself in dark knots

-

While winter 

as ever

whitened on

from all the colors

around us

-

And we tried

to scare off wolves

we traveled fast through

frozen forests

-

Then I was again

at home in the winterland

Watching twilight

dwindle gray between

gray farms

-

In the birch forest

across the ice

was a group of cots

With pillars of smoke

rising beyond 

the graveyard

where you were waiting

Ristin

-

Beyond

the graveyard walls

by Aslat’s grave

I took your hand

you had an

infected wound above

your eyebrow

-

Silent you placed 

the last stone

from the coast

on his grave

-

Nila’s fingers

had to be held

like jerking

reins

And the familiar

waves spoke 

to me 

of a freedom

in the sea

-

I said that I 

hated the reindeer

but needed them

too

-

We have to leave 

Aslan again

For the sake of work

and the herd

Here he would 

remain

alone

While we were being driven

from our homes

-

Then you said:

What kind of home is it

where no one dares say

our son’s name

-

Aslat is forgotten

Only his fate 

is remembered

But you promised me

that his head was resting

safely in his grave

-

The dead

were not allowed to be 

exhumed

-

And the bells

tolled beyond

the forest

-

We were called 

to a church weekend

One last time

we would

meet our own

-

Because now it was full

It was full of

people in the village

Karesuando church village. Winter 1920

(Ristin)

The Swede’s fingers 

all inside my mouth

clothing strewn

across the floor

-

Me thinking 

it was because of my

bad teeth

that the traveling doctor had come

-

With hard tools

he measured me

learned men

in every nook

With razor-sharp

scratching pens

they went

through me

-

I could tell that the

short one

was taking shape 

on their papers

Using royal ink

to draw

the racial animal

-

The shackles

of our obedience

unfastened

my home-sewn belt

-

My breasts hung

their distaste blazed

-

I saw how they

wrinkled their

slender noses

laughing

all the while

-

My friend beside me

was quick to help me

on with my kolt

Then she quietly translated

their questions

about what we did 

when menstruating

-

Over the doctor’s shoulder

the minister

-

And I heard him 

say in Finnish:

The way their men drink

makes God cry

and the Devil laugh

And the shame

took root in me

because of my dark hair

and my

dark eyes

-

Outside the barn

my friend’s daughters

shivering waiting 

for their treatment

-

And my poor Nila

was fished out

from where I don’t know

A camera was pointed

at his

upset face

until he just

sank through the floor

-

I watched them trample 

him

with heavy boots

Tall chairs

were dragged out and they

sat down on him

-

I noticed how big 

he’d gotten

not a child anymore

there he stood lost

and mute among their 

bare hands

touching him

-

He should come 

with us to the institution

said the doctor

and finally

my body obeyed

-

And I went up 

to the men

and pulled the weak one 

from the Swede’s grip

With every stroke of her pencil  

the little girl unfurls dreams

and traces childhood’s uncertain roadmaps. 

A twisted loom,

lines on a page mending sorrows

which she weaves into life’s purity.

In a scarring script

she tattoos the wavering future

on the bare skinned wall.

Without commas in her gaze,

the little girl dribbles colons with each breath

and swears an exclamation mark

is a lollipop:

“Is growing up for real or make-believe?”

Dot dot dot, I gasped.

A question mark is a fisherman’s hook.

I’d taken the bait of uncertainty, 

when she offered me as consolation,

wrapped in quotation marks, a single Smartie.

In the end, tree, a cloudy shelter will come 

to cover your dry, aged branches.

It will lend you, short on green,

the white glow of its weightlessness

As a drop undoes the cloud into tears

I’ll tell my children:

no, the tree didn’t die,

your childhood sun has set.

My life circled round

every side a destination  

—I’m a budding stone

the sky at my fingertips

I exist beyond the silence

inside voices and their words

inside voiceless words

And inside these insides where blue arouses the clitoris

as my dead pass teeming with sky

to the wonder of the earth floor dizzy with birds.

A floor within the swoon?

it is me passing by, it is we the budding dead

the sky within another sky

to the wonder of two eyes kaleido-scoping the horizon:

I have skies at my fingertips

and I am not short of ground:

—My life, a circle route:

everywhere destination!

First visit.

I'm here because I want to be left alone

 

Gender Survey:

In order to proceed, I need access to

your body i.e. brain

your life i.e. sex life

your medical history

your stories

 

Second visit.

 

Have I completed a gender survey so I can cope with being a poet

or am I a poet in order to cope with the gender survey

so used to narrating myself

in exchange for fees and care

The glossy floors and the large window

upon arrival I leave

my name and agency at the reception

I want to talk about my complex and people want to describe me as respectable

to line up the words on the table in front of the psychologist

so we can look at them and pretend we’re equal

A gatekeeper may deny access

a sword can burn against the throat

can still be called angel

fear’s throbbing anatomy

the throat artery's defiant disposition 

highlights a sample of beautiful truths

the same obedience as usual

the same hands folded in my lap

 

 

Third visit.

 

Gender Survey:

Describe your social situation

 

Saw a snake in the woods today

winding across the gravel on its stomach 

as if it didn’t hurt

and every obstacle it met on the way

it slid right around

Imagine if my body could help me like that

Fourth visit

 

I cancel

 

I have reconstructed everything

the boy the girl and the autistic one

documented the fatigue and depression

With the diagnosis as a veil a shield I slid through the corridors.

In the middle of puberty, I escaped sexuality 

got out of girl parties and boyhood problems

got out of punishment and ostracism

stopped learning from the group

how women apply makeup to put on a face

The group of girls I tried to belong to

didn’t work out and lost interest

the punishments ricocheted against the mirrors

newly awakened, I cut myself on the shards

without a clear direction or sender

So the girl was kept intact

floated across the school yard, slid through

high school corridors

rape cultures

mostly without a scratch

Women were formed there

I understand now, as protection and strategy

formed groups there

dancing in a circle around activist tote bags

they became women

I did not become a body

The Publisher

 

It needs a more structured wholeness 

 

I want to reside in the hard and permanent

so I construct a suite of poems and a man to live inside

I want to be pinned down securely

to be normalized and become part of the dictionary

assigned a home

to leave

Scenes flow together

public libraries and pride festivals

small town train stations

press photo and description max 50 words

Twenty-five thousand miles of nerves

I choose the reddest one

pull it out through my throat and set it on stage

my life is three minutes long

they say perfect ten

I'm trying to boil

down to my essence

become a concentrate

of my own existence

then it's called politics

 

Tried to throw out my inner baby Jesus with the bath water

but it held firm inside the lines, screaming and screaming

of course I want nothing more than to fish for Christian Democrats

lure with a little hook of poetry

this body is so useful as bait

People came to me to confess

their heteronormative sins, I said

here, eat my body

I am a worm

and you will be fished up

you will be saved

you will be good

but why do I long for heaven

when I like it best in the flower’s moist soil

I stepped back from my death

it was strange and inhuman to me

*

and now my eyes are knives slicing the night to

                                                         split the mist

rising inside

like the tears of a poem

shedding its sadness

over the warm flight of egrets

flitting about

after the docile defeat

 

*

 

now my eyes are knives slicing the mist like a di-vi-ded body

I stepped back from my death

and rose up

clandestine

syllable by syllable

almost like the unwritten poem

and suddenly

hair tousled by days of abandon

I find your discontent

in a commonplace dress

the furled poetic fabric 

that switches the body on

to disarray

in a song without refrain

some fruit scattered

in the rush to ripen

these mineral days

I want to climb beyond the reach of words

where my death will not be

the death of others too

even if I see my sorrow in yours

and then I don’t.

Translated by Christian Gullette

What’s in a name? she asks,

with her blonde hair,


ponytail,


and blue-eyed gaze,

her memories of summer cottages,

rhyming clues for Christmas gifts and debates over Finland’s


official languages.


“What’s in a name?”

She says


we ought to take my mother’s name


and pave the way for the future.

To show the name belongs


on book covers


and voting ballots.

And not just on the sign above an ethnic restaurant.



Easy for her to say, my mother says.

“She doesn’t bear the burden of the name like you do.


For her, the name is a sign of goodness,


of virtue,


a silk ribbon that leaves no trace 


when she removes it.”


 


I say change is always painful,


someone has to be the first.

Then it’ll have to be someone else, she says.

Can’t the name be one of my virtues? I ask.

She says,


You’ll just be their monkey.

Translated by Christian Gullette

What’s in a name? she asks,

with her blonde hair,


ponytail,


and blue-eyed gaze,

her memories of summer cottages,

rhyming clues for Christmas gifts and debates over Finland’s


official languages.


“What’s in a name?”

She says


we ought to take my mother’s name


and pave the way for the future.

To show the name belongs


on book covers


and voting ballots.

And not just on the sign above an ethnic restaurant.



Easy for her to say, my mother says.

“She doesn’t bear the burden of the name like you do.


For her, the name is a sign of goodness,


of virtue,


a silk ribbon that leaves no trace 


when she removes it.”


 


I say change is always painful,


someone has to be the first.

Then it’ll have to be someone else, she says.

Can’t the name be one of my virtues? I ask.

She says,


You’ll just be their monkey.

Translated by Christian Gullette

I read poems,


describe a family being crushed by its own baggage.

A publisher says I fill a niche.

“We want to make sure nobody mistakes you


for Athena Farrokhzad.”

She says that many of the poems are good,


but certain ones are


typical immigrant poems.

“You can cut those.

There are, after all, two poets in Sweden


and one in Denmark


writing about those things.”

I ask what people are writing about today,


what is considered new?

“People write about all kinds of things!


The archipelago,


the Winter War,


and alcoholism.”