A Woman Walking Within Me
A Woman Walking Within Me
No one has read my coffee-cup
without divining you’re my love,
nor studied the lines of my palm
and not discerned four letters of your name,
everything can be denied
except the fragrance of the one we love,
everything can be concealed
except a woman’s footsteps moving within us,
everything can be debated
except your femininity.
What will become of us
in our comings and goings?
when all the coffee-bars have memorised our faces
and all the hotels registered our names
and the sidewalks grown accustomed to the music
of our feet?
We’re exposed to the world like a seaward balcony
visible like two goldfish
in a crystal bowl.
Nizar Qabbani
Tr by L Jayyusi and J Reed
April 16th, 2009 at 23:46
[...] 11, 2009 poetry RT @akarra RT @MercurialMe http://blog.mercurialme.com/a-woman-walk... “No one has read my coffee-cup without divining you’re my love” #poetry [...]