[“Hulm al-Buyut” was published in Sargon Boulus’ posthumous collection “`Azma Ukhra li-Kalb al-Qabila” (Another Bone for the Tribe’s Dog) (Baghdad and Beirut: Dar al-Jamal, 2008)]
The Dream of Houses
There is a street somewhere
lined with houses
Washed by the whiteness of memory
one ceiling after another
I move about inside them
Storming like a night
Fashioning stairs out of my words
Voices too faint to be heard by anyone
Inanna weaves the fog of sleep for me there
with her severed hands
Tonight I am a master over no one
I always find the house in the dream
I open the door
All that furniture devoured by distances
Beyond the reach of memory
Its first names lost
The stream is still flowing since childhood
into ditches
That old woman, Nanunta Nana,
dangles her toes with their yellow toenails in its waters
We come to guide her to her dilapidated hut
beyond the river
Slowly we walk her to the end of the neighborhood
Her old dress flowing in the wind
[Trabslated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon]