Kids must cry
When entwined fingers separate
Cry
When bed and places are multiplied
And home divides into:
Mother's home
Father’s home.

The boy who set out with his father to the jungle
To learn how wings grow into butterflies
He will look at the surface of the brook
And a teardrop will fall from his eye
Snatching him thirty years
back:

The girl who I was
Didn't cry when her father
Flew from the balcony
She kept staring towards
the east
With her teardrop frozen in
her pupil
For two decades
Until father’s voice
scattered
From the minaret:
Prayer calls
And hymns
And balloons of orphan children.

Youngsters must know
That before teardrops roll on the sketchbook
Mothers who were killed by loneliness
 

Shrugging coldness from their fingers
And lighting the ovens
Offerings to Saqqara’s gods
Who forgot to scatter letters
At the threshold of the mute child.

Mothers who were for but sadness
They can raise their heads
For a single moment of happiness
When the witch opens her basket
In front of them
They can
Bathe in light
For once
Before they scurry behind the curtain.

Children cry
When fingers separate
And when houses split
So they finish half the painting
And the other half
Painted by the sad mothers
When they draw out from their shoulders
Some hidden little wings
To migrate to the farthest point on earth
Like elephants
When they are certain
Of their approaching death.
 

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© Translated by Sayed Gouda