with a single press
I pulled you out of the grave, out of the air,
out of the belly of a forgotten tank,
Gilgamesh,
just to offer you a cup of hot tea,
brought from India —
tea wrongly called “arabesque.”
the arabesque, in fact, can only be found on walls.
you were busy back then
when sculpture was forbidden, poetry, song
and even the body’s ecstasy.
the only thing permitted
was the sharpening of edges —
the sharper they were,
the larger our ration of water and air.
I know you grew bored waiting through so many millennia,
but at least you never needed blood
or words
to feed your descendants.
and now you command me
to gather ninety-nine stones
and stone the windows.
don’t you know that, after you left,
I suckled the breasts of every woman who remained,
drank the sap of trees,
and left no rock untouched
until it offered me its silence.
can’t you see how tall I’ve grown?
tall enough to bring every sky
into my bedroom
and love them, one by one,
until the stars collapse inside my eyes
and never leave again.
look —
I see now
the steam no longer rises from your palms.
prepare yourself —
you will enter my memory
and wait for my final verdict.
from the books of history
I will build you a vast fire,
with a single press.
Fri vers (Fri form)
av Djamal Mahmoud
Publicerad 2025-11-15 21:14