AYA NABIH

Abstraction

The petrified clocks

Are harsh like a wall

And like my writings:

Useless

I have a space here

In the yellow room

And from my place

I can see the plastic roses

Above the refrigerator

Looking like death...

(Perhaps those roses would smile

if the sky rains once over the vase)

I'm – certainly - here

How can "I" be there?

While outside the open window

There is the same scene:

Night and a white paper circle 

That only hides a small area of the dark

When my left hand aches

The right one consoles it

And pets it like a cat licking its young in the winter

I'm here and no one else

The room is yellow

The night is a lake bottom

The moon is like my writings:

Useless

The clocks

Seem petrified

But something pushes me to believe

That yesterday

The roof of my room

Was not so close

               ---Aya Nabih

Aya Nabih was born in Cairo, Egypt. She received her BA in English language and literature from Cairo University. She is a translator for many TV channels and alternative film center. An artist in residence during 2015 in Morocco and New York with cross-cultural arts organization Tamaas, Dar Almamunarts center and L’Atelier de Source du Lion. Her first poetry collection Exercises for Developing Insomnia Skills will be published soon by Al Kotob Khan Publishing House. *This poem was previously published in a book of contemporary Egyptian poets translated by Maged Zaher called The Tahrir of Poems.