A Dream Poem by Hussein Barghouthi

Your white fingers pass through my dream
like ten mirrors
and I see myself in them as smokeless fire
don't hurt the heart, my dear desire
for sentiment

It happens in my dream that I long for you
so I descend as rows of doves
to the pavements of the winter cities in your eyes
and peck the quivering of lights in water ponds, and ask:
"O, street of lights, what is the color of the sky?
and what are those dancing for? "
"from where do I enter when chests are on chests? "
it happens that I dance among strangers, there
a stranger on a street on which are snows and the moon
and the neon lamps breasts of glass
that wash my face with a light of pale whiteness
near ice that has frozen
on ivory fountains.
Don't ask me:
"Why do you like travelling
in the waves of me eyes? "
It is a custom of fish to swim to the depths
when they sense the closeness of the quake
and the disturbance of things,
my love for disturbance
my search for my soul, whichever the result:
a kiss or a guillotine

So come to me
so I can carry the body of wilderness of yours in my palm as a compass
and watch you scatter
like light does on the ships of speech.