**Balm**
Why did they say?
Love won’t return
Another time
Like friendship
Then they said
It’s a memory of a wound
Twisting
And sees the tremor of a heart
With its aspirations cautiously observed
It will long for
The tear of the eye for a memory
Folded, wounded
And constrained
They lied
Something like light came
Smiling
Surpassing every wound
With grace and elegance
He didn’t add a bit of bitterness
Mourning, crying in longing
He was the last
He was light
He was, in his eyes,
A story
Without blame
And melodies of complaint
Then he gifted her a book
Fragrant, a bouquet
Writing,
“May God protect you”
In a few lines
In a card.
Violet – Nabilah Al-Sheikh – trans. Hatem Al-Shamea
