A letter

For Amal Donqoul



Do you remember the first poem I wrote on the dictation notebook?
The first time I went to the palace and heard about you? I thought you were a Sudanese she-poet!! and when I saw your writings with a slang she-poet I found your face carved and untidy; like a just fallen house – while still, on a pink wall , a photo of new bride and groom – your eyes were throwing light dawn the street ; like a fire in a pile of papers – your eyes were going home. Briefly, you looked much like a wall whitener or Upper-Egyptian baker.

Do you remember the first cigarette I smoked with you in the University City? The ash fell on "Don’t Reconcile" and I closed the book on it like the flower of lovers!

I was a junior intellectual then; still chewing prosody- now, I make fun of those who write in the tradition shape and those who are sunk in feet. I'm saying it badly:-" it's me who abandoned "ElKHalily" and wrote in prose! "I escaped from the maze and the coma of metaphors. However, they listen to me and clap their hands!!!

Sometimes, I pass the Blue Tram and the Great Alexander st.,
and I remember you
I see you turning round the wall of the Greek Graves.
Then I feel shy to call you: Amal... Where are you staying tonight?

I looked for you in the hospital where I was confined, in all the rooms with number "8", but I didn't find you! I left you a message with girls. When my friends came and mentioned you, I scolded them. But I wished to take a cigarette.

Is death so far away like that?
Then, how is your voice climbing the walls?

I think you have taught them to stay late or they have appointed you as a guard at the gate to infiltrate poems and cigarettes … Do you remember the old guard who was waiting for a thief that never came? He was waiting for many things, like you and me. He hoped to smell the sun rays in his pillow and to sweep the coldness spotted on pavements- kids scattered it from the newspapers seller's hands.

Now, I read for people living far away, I have published a poem in " Ebdaa " magazine, I have written a poems book in classic Arabic and saved it in my drawer and I hear the news at the café, I become angry, light a cigarette and order " anise"!

Is your voice till ground? Your hands a pot of concrete and ten blocks of red bricks? Are you still coughing before you get the morning cold? Are you still packing your chest with a fire before breakfast? Are you still getting your shoes aside; the shoes which were blackened by rambling and walking behind things?

I'm not like you, guy. I don't need to call my last street after your name. For I have just gone out of quarrelling with the mirror and stairs sprayed with chicken feathers. Sure you will ask wickedly:-" did the chickens fly naked to the roof?!" it's your habit,
Rough like a joy, and warmer than disappointment.