THE ROOM OF DARKNESS Poem by Mona Kareem

la nuit seule dans ma voix

Jean Senac
I am from darkness, my
homeland is an aging butterfly,
my prayers are the desert


I wash in rain's spit.
In my prayers the sun
dances tip-toe.*

My god on the brink of a death.
He the echo's infraviolet.
He is a storm
that loves to talk.

*

I was born with a genetic defect,
one of twins: I
and solitude.
I shall gift you all a sad heart,
a burst eye, a foot
with twenty toes
and other limbs left me
by Time, my friend.*

My father budded between sheets
of pouring rain, between
two moments of silence
from the widowed sky.

When I accepted him as a father
he made me paper angels
that I can beat easy
at hide-and-seek.

*

My father was the first volcano on earth
and our balcony the axis of the swirling rain
at the beginning of a feast day.
Our balcony was a rowboat of tears
sometimes sunk in childish clamour.
Our balcony: a life that left the city
and settled in a tub of imagination
…
…
In our new home
there is no balcony.

**

I saw new accessories
worn by the earth
and I saw houses shed their doors
to disassociate themselves
from loved ones parting.

*

I saw cities abandon their inhabitants,
the train lines creaking
on their back
and weeping the river to bid farewell.

*

I feel blood vagrant
in my veins.
I feel washrooms playing cards
atop my lighthouse head.*

Words need someone
to scrub them with soap,
need looser clothes
and a stranger who won't demand they smile.

*

In light
I see the darkness
I see my god
I see time
I see you
…
…
but I don't see me.