SAADI YOUSSEF

TRANS. BY KHALED MATTAWA

CLOUDY SATURDAY

From eight in the morning
to five in the afternoon
we knead loaves,
pave sidewalks,
and sleep without prayer.

You ask us, what do we eat?
Beans gnaw at us
with dried cumin and peppers.
Hunger gnaws at us and injustice
bites into us like wolves devouring fawns.

Heavy trucks carry us to the shore
to build villas and hotels,
to build fortifications and trenches.
But when night comes
we are chased away from the rooms we build.

Shall we sing?
Sometimes, we remember we were children,
that villages in the countryside once loved us.
We remember that we once loved,
and our words break into sobs.

Saadi Youssef (1934-2021) is considered one of the most important contemporary poets in the Arab world. He was born near Basra, Iraq. Following his experience as a political prisoner in Iraq, he spent most of his life in exile, working as a teacher and literary journalist throughout North Africa and the Middle East. He is the author of over forty books of poetry, two novels, a short story collection, and several books nonfiction.

Khaled Mattawa is the William Wilhartz Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. His latest book of poems is Fugitive Atlas (Graywolf, 2020). A MacArthur Fellow, he is the current editor of Michigan Quarterly Review.