This poem is taken from PN Review 233, Volume 43 Number 3, January - February 2017.
The Mothers & the Mediterraneantranslated from the French by Marilyn Hacker
Destroy everything cried the mothers from their high
balconies
wring the streetlights’ necks
make the trees eat dust
dismember the ladder the doll the spider’s hammock
The children will play with the Sea
they will learn addition from the corpses piled on the
sidewalks
subtraction from decapitated trees
*
An eye plucked up from the dust for a pistachio ice
cream cone for a glass of hibiscus juice –
the merchant on the Corniche trades in everything
that can be bought and sold
Tanks crossed the Mediterranean
The mothers called the dead and the children to come
in before the bombardments
...
balconies
wring the streetlights’ necks
make the trees eat dust
dismember the ladder the doll the spider’s hammock
The children will play with the Sea
they will learn addition from the corpses piled on the
sidewalks
subtraction from decapitated trees
*
An eye plucked up from the dust for a pistachio ice
cream cone for a glass of hibiscus juice –
the merchant on the Corniche trades in everything
that can be bought and sold
Tanks crossed the Mediterranean
The mothers called the dead and the children to come
in before the bombardments
...
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