Innocence can’t survive these times, so I come to love you
before the void. We dreamed of a haven for refugees,
shelter for birds, water for palms. We watched spring turn to ash,
the sun burn itself away, the river of wine become blood.
The edge of my own pride was both border and blade.
Just look at how my hand can close.
But your love is my shade and my Nile,
and the ragged path of hope is still a path.
Come—we still dream within weariness.
Come—any day’s light is still daylight,
and at night the moon still beams.
Love, we are pure revelation.
Love threads every agony, kindles the lost.
Consider: if I pulled the shutters, and squandered the faith
that made me, would that grieving quell anguish?
Since our eyes are pale night, faint light, let’s send fire
into the abyss, shout in the impossible silence,
and weave a new image of leave-taking.
Translated from Arabic into English by Fogle and I, it won the prize of Rhino poetry and appeared in the same book in USA 2015.