The refugee tells
Chris Steele-Perkins. Refugees in a sandstorm, Sha-allan ONE camp, Jordan, 1990. Source: magnumphotos.com
The refugee absorbed in telling his tale
feels no burning, when the cigarette stings his fingers.
He’s absorbed in the awe of being Here
after all those Theres: the stations, and the ports,
the search parties, the forged papers…
He dangles from the chain of circumstance –
his destiny wound like fibre,
in rings as narrow as
those countries on whose chest
the nightmares have piled up.
The smugglers, the mafias, if you asked me,
might not be as bad as that sky of hungry seagulls
above a damaged ship in Nowhere.
If you asked me I would say:
Eternal waiting in immigration offices,
and faces that do not smile back, no matter how much you smile;
who said it was the dearest gift?
If you asked me, I would say: People, everywhere.
I would say: Everywhere,
stones.
He tells and he tells and he tells,
because he has arrived but does not taste arrival,
and he feels nothing when the cigarette burns his fingers.
Translated from the Arabic by Youssef Rakha
