As Night Became Talkative Poem by Venus Khoury-Ghata

we were lent a window on a fragment of the world
We we re the house and the road that led to the house
The mother moved the door each time a train went by and at each procession toward
the cemetery
The earth remained the same despite the dead buried in it
They were wept for in unison
but laughter was separate
The mother sprinkled the doorstep with soot though she no longer had a cauldron
Her kitchen utensils fled after the last guest deserted her
I try to imagine that departure and find only lines crossed out in a notebook