Casino - Rasha Omran

I am “unlucky:” I deal cards, then stare as the others handle them with deft fingers and win

I am “unlucky:” I write about love and watch other women read what I’ve written, as they tear out their hearts and cast them aside, then kiss their men with the passion of a woman in love

I am “unlucky:” I sing at the end of the night, the drunken men rapt with my song, I watch them sway but no one notices the sadness cascading from my voice

I am “unlucky:” I’ve slept with dozens of men I never loved, and when I fell in love, I plunged into a pit, where there was nothing but a bed that could barely carry the weight of my lone body

I am “unlucky:” I know that I’ll die alone like a hedgehog, no one daring to check the pulse beneath her skin full of prickles

I am “unlucky:” everyone will leave me without a word of farewell, and if I turn, I’ll find no one behind me. I’ll walk for miles before becoming a mirage that other people will chase in vain

I am “unlucky:” I borrow a dead poet’s words, and imagine him sticking his tongue out at me, mockingly, not saying a word

I am “unlucky:” my name is Rasha Omran, I sleep on my belly in the bedroom and on my back my white cat stands as though up high on a hill, tracking her own shadow moving across the wall, then she leaps to catch the grains of sand shedding off my skin.

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Rasha Omran (born 1964) Syria
Translated by Phoebe Bay Carter
Source: ArabLit Quarterly CATS issue Fall 2020