I have a lover - Hafsa Bint Hamdun

I have a lover who can’t be budged
by reproach & if I leave him he
asks out of spite: have you ever
known a man like me before?
To which I retort, & have you ever
seen a woman quite like me?

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Hafsa Bint Hamdun (10th century) Spain
Translated by Joseph Mulligan
Source: Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour, University of California Press, 2013