قدَرٌ لا يقبلُ الرِّهان

I know that you came from your village

and your scent is like the wheat of the mills,

and your poems are written with the kohl of the farmers' women.

I know that your mouth is full of the mud of love,

and that your feet are soaked in the mire of the earth,

and that your broad shoulders will block the sun's eye,

and that your velvet robe hides within it excessive fat;

from eating duck, and your mother's pie mixed with nostalgia...

I know you will ask me: How am I?

And that you were late for the appointments of dreams to sell

Aunt Fatima's livestock,

and that you will buy me a small house made of cement,

and its garden's fountains are crucified like the tears of mothers...

I know that you escaped from the traditions of your ancestors,

and from customs that are no longer suitable for freedom,

and that you can no longer love me more than yourself,

and that you can smell my perfume that confused you, and returned your lost ecstasy...

I know you want to convince me that you have known no one but me from the girls of your village,

and that beautiful women are planted in your path like temporary landmines

to explode at any moment under your desires,

and that you need mercy from God;

to escape from this noise that resides in your head...

I know that you came from your village, differing with me in many things,

and that you are a stranger in your love, your homeland, your dream, and my femininity.

I know well that you do not have a single cigarette to light,

and color with its smoke a thousand stories from the paper of memories,

and that you carve from your sins a mirror with which I shape my face and my disappointments,

when I do not love you as you are; a strong villager, bringing love from barren land,

and watering its drought from the breast of the world...

I know that you came alone from the cracks of this earth,

broader than my heart,

and less longing than the stream of blood stuck in my mind,

and as a fate that does not accept betting...

I know that you came from your village,

you do not deserve all this fierce oppression on your wishes,

and on the terrified hysteria inside my narrow body.