His words are like thick smoke
that gets tangled in the lips,
the nose,
the fingers…
like milky and dense smoke
that dulls mind,
reddens eyes
and stuns the ears.
Like harshs whitish smoke
that stains the cloths
and levae footprints on the floor.
They are like a muffled explotion.
Like a yell in silence,
like hawking in the dessert with a broken tongue;
like a blow in the temple;
like a rugged lament.
His words are hot steam that soften the senses.
Because there are sorrows that run through the sound
and don’t need verbs nor conjugations.
those sorrows don’t require prose,
nor adjective, nor adverb
because their gender agrees better
with the blood;
with the open pores
and dilated pupils.
His words, because of that, are like the smoke,
like the steam that through sublimation
changes from being sorrow
to be mood, without touching
the air.
Because in turning his pain into
minethere was no cry, no fussing,
there was no words, no yelling,
only a packed table
with 12 empty seats.
So far. So close.
So his.
So mine.
The zaatar is chopped and served.
The olive oil is ready to dip bread.
“Come next to me: wife, brothers, kids.
Everything is on the table”.
But his words are smoke.
Cold and White smoke that
like summer clouds fade
leaving him alone in a filled table
with twelve empty seats.