About My Identity He Asked …
Poem by: Iqbal Tamimi
Translated by: Adib S. Kawar *
About my identity he asked…
Out of my pulse I pulled…
An olive with fury it was coated…
And a drop of oil out of niches the grave's window it lit…
My mother's dress I showed him…
With my grandfather and uncle's blood it was embroidered…
And in its buttonhole the summer's harvest there is…
Some straw…
That my house's shadow I don't sell…
With my grand mother's tales my pillow is stuffed…
The image doesn't tally with what washe said…
On the bridge the waiting's sun me it stung…
his fingers dribbled…
While my documents he was searching…
My body he disarrayed…
Under my armpit they groped…
To be ambiguous he hoped…
That I be smuggling a poem…
Bearing some blaze…
In my bosom my baby's milk he searched…
Assured he was it doesn't carry…
Under my headscarf his hand he put…
Probably he thought I might have hid…
Some rioting…
To take off my boot they ordered..
Probably he would find in my heel's tumbling…
A shooting star…
Fury… Fury… Fury…
Nothing he found…
Tattooed was my birth certificate…
Under my skin with henna gold water…
My identity card he confiscated…
A question mark I became…
On my eyebrow astonishment he red…
With the hearts stem to you it raved…
Falling from our land's thyme…
And the plain's clary…
And the sparrows…
My wings have some fluff…
A Palestinian I am…
My grandfather is God's bosom…*
In Al-Khalil's* mountains a vertex I have …
When my hair I comb…
My comb with some clouds it interlocks…
