By Fadi Abu Deeb

She said unto me:

The real poetry is a new gospel for our ancient rituals;

A new articulation of psalms whose last words are effaced;

A commemoration of our village’s temple that sank under the city’s sand.

***

Your poem is a fragrance of flowers I know without names.

It’s the odor of the first blossoms of my desire,

and the seeds of the sprouting cherries

on the paths of your own terrae incognitae in my body.

***

Your language is the resurrection of my juvenility, my bloom of youth;

a straight road into the gate of my sanctuary;

An orphaned key for the tower of my breast.

***

You are a seed for my soil.

You are the rain that dissipates the gloominess of my lips.

You are the breath of fertility in the flames of my blood.