Poems I wish I had written, part ten

On My Head's Playground
by Joumana Haddad

(Translated by: Issa J. Boullata)

For a long time
I was their spear and its goal
Until the scream of sex
Filled my loneliness.

For a long time
They did not know
When I shone with my early femininity
On the bed of my childhood,
When I learned
To steal my own treasures in order to become rich.
For a long time
They did not know
When my body mellowed with its honey sheen
And found its narrow path.

For a long time
I invented arts and practiced instincts good for me
When I played with them on my head’s playground.
I played the coquette,
I flirted and dallied,
I refrained,
And I yielded.
For a long, long time
They sat in my imagination
And I devoured them
And they did not know.