Voices - Zahra el Hasnaui

To all the Sahrawi voices locked in graves and jails;

those voices that, nevertheless, bring down more than walls.

Perhaps you think your voice does not reach me,

that the evil sirocco carries it off

before it fills my senses.

Perhaps you dream that the echo is mute

the mirror blind and your lines

cowardice.

Your clones pile up,

and in a riot they fight

in black and white

to leave my throat.

Sometimes I spit,

almost always I gobble

down wrath and blood,

and peace and dirt.

I would like to chain

your hands to mine

and swing open the roof

top up to the stars.

I would like to wash

the anger from your eyes.

Thirty voices

thirty times

repeat the history,

because no one or thing

ever could or can tame

the voices that brush

against the soul.

---

Zahra el Hasnaui (born 1964) Western Sahara

Translated by Joseph Mulligan

Source: Poems for the Millennium, Vol 4, edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour, University of California Press, 2012