A poem by Yasser Abdellatif

by qisasukhra

An unpublished poem by Yasser Abdellatif entitled زيارة أخرى إلى برج السراب

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Another trip to the tower Mirage

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She lives on the twelfth floor

where there lives too

her wise fleet fingers

her grey hair

her sixty years.

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The tower has six lifts

three to the right of the lobby

and marble like ivory

gleaming damply

with daylight dwindling

till shadows swallow

stealing footfalls

and three lifts to the left.

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In wait are doormen.

He makes before them

a veil, a veil

behind them

and slips within

with all of twenty-eight years.

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A different lift every time

from which wing doesn’t matter

for both meet on the floors

and both lead to the line.

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The box of wood and glass lifts

through its shaft

no light at its end

but her

and with each floor the lift advances

it sinks further into folds of a fleshed darkness.

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The journey repeated an endless return

the slipping an absence

as is the ascent

and she is night in its long stretch.

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He does not remember a door opening

or curtains released or curtains falling.

She seats him in a small chair

and spells and charms spill over

in the darkness opening

holes. He multiplies

like zeroes dividing.

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