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Poetry

Reader in the Dark

By Fawzi Karim
Translated from Arabic by Rebecca C. Johnson

You reach in the hour of sleep to put out the light,
to feel for the lock of your door,
and lowered curtain of the window.
You leap like a cat up the stairs,
slip underneath the blanket,
and dream:
That the book that you were reading at your chair
is now opened again in the darkness
and other fingers are turning its pages.
That an eye rests its gaze
on the emptiness turning between the lines.

English

You reach in the hour of sleep to put out the light,
to feel for the lock of your door,
and lowered curtain of the window.
You leap like a cat up the stairs,
slip underneath the blanket,
and dream:
That the book that you were reading at your chair
is now opened again in the darkness
and other fingers are turning its pages.
That an eye rests its gaze
on the emptiness turning between the lines.

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