They say that the night - Zahra el Hasnaui

They say that the night

repossesses

your indigo, violet,

and cobalt tones.

That on your lap

the salty kisses

dried up.

They say that

Sakia El Hamra River
Source: Wikimedia Commons

the sonata

of wind

becomes a

symphony of

chaotic notes

conducted

by fear.

Ignore the spears

of the serpent.

I will return,

wrapped in cloaks

of red stars,

to clean up

the contaminated water.

To die and come back to life

in the atlantic underbelly

To that childhood friend, clearly present in the distance, my Rio Saguia

---

Zahra el Hasnaui Ahmed (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