A Country

We multiply by a bomb Then we bear another. We drag our children into passport documents. We multiply far from the bedroom And spit on our wedding day - never paying attention to the tears. On the TV screen Baghdad storms us with bridges Carnage of the Al Hadidi* fell in the Tigris - It disappeared, taking refuge in the gulf And I became a refugee on buses and newspapers. I shake At the first border check point And I shake When I hear the news And I shake Is there a lorry big enough for me, For a passer by, Who exchanged the capital of Al Rashid with a sea? We’re farther from the wheels of the Mongols, The black tea And the darkness of Baghdad. But the newsreader Was still shooting at us with his news While smiling. * * * * * The strangers Ask me about the war. No one asked me about the shrapnel that blasted the window, The wardrobe where my dreams had heaped Amongst metallic coins. * * * * * Baghdad Is climbing another graveyard, And I am like a cigarette between two fingers, Standing far from her walls Vomiting my dreams on a pavement in Damascus - The smell old friends. Friends who’re working in deception with joy And the papers urinated on others. Is homeland a terrace on a tanker that treads on my dreams everyday On Al Rashid street? Or is homeland a dynamite freight That brings joy to the children? Jebla / Al Latheqiya 2007 * Al Hadidi: is the bridge of Sarrafiya in Baghdad. It was made of metal and was bombed in 2007.