Nathalie Handal

The shadows of birds fading on a fighter's back
The undressing of words on an unstamped postcard
The wet swings in the distant park
...

When the white trees are no longer in sight
they are telling us something,
like the body that undresses
...

I don't know if I left the window open,
or the electric fireplace on,
not sure if my name is Natalya or Navarro,
...

I traveled nowhere where I could not be found.
I knocked on every neighbors' door, stole every pillow,
wiped away the ants on my kitchen table, leaned against
...

The phone line is on fire,
my cousin's spirit in flames
as she tells me
about Dar Al-Kalima
...

A cup of empty messages in a room of light,
light that blinds & blinded men lined up
the young are unable to die peacefully, I hear a man say.
...

You greet me only with your eyes.
That evening you write to me
on a starless night,
...

We say lightning has no wings
when it slides down our houses
...

This is what I see:
a grain of wheat in the hand of a small boy
...

the negrita cries, I hide
not to deceive the darkness
or myself…
...

He might return and if he appears blue I might
allow him on top and if he returns with the sun
I will let summer multiply on my body
...

He saw nothing. Said nothing.
He could no longer sleep in the room.
There are many ways to love―
...

There is a dream of dance
that we'll remember
there's ten windows
...

One hundred breaths split the air
as I lean
on the only pine tree I find.
...

Nothing is even, even this line
I am writing, even this line I am waiting in,
waiting for permission to enter
the country, the house, the room.
...

A night without a blanket, a blanket
belonging to someone else, someone
else living in our homes.
...

There you stand
between the dream of two gazelles,
breathlessly
...

A cup of empty messages in a room of light,
light that blinds & blinded men lined up
the young are unable to die peacefully, I hear a man say.
...

Most exiles do not take enough with them—
some obtain new lands, new identities
others return to the empty corridors of their sleep
...

Secrets live in the space between our footsteps.
The words of my grandfather echoed in my dreams,
as the years kept his beads and town.
...