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Poetry

Departure ’82

By Saadi Youssef
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa

Soon
all the rooms will be closed,
and beginning with the basement,
we will leave them
one
by one
until we reach the guns
on the roof.
We will leave them too . . . like the rooms
and go on
to search in our blood
or in our maps
for new rooms.

September 26, 1984

English

Soon
all the rooms will be closed,
and beginning with the basement,
we will leave them
one
by one
until we reach the guns
on the roof.
We will leave them too . . . like the rooms
and go on
to search in our blood
or in our maps
for new rooms.

September 26, 1984

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