Exile Grows on Our Chest like Green Mold
Translated By Dalac Issac
Translated from the Arabic
The soldier who won the war became a father of two corpses.
Each evening, he returns home,
digging up the graves of his slain with the pickaxe of memory.
He exhumes the corpses, playing with them briefly,
telling them bedtime stories about remorse,
before tucking them back
beneath the soil.
The soldier who was killed
still serves his remaining shifts
at the cemetery gate,
eagerly waiting for another comrade to arrive.
Notes:
This poem is part of the folio “Broken Lines: A Gathering of Exiled Poets,” curated by Laura Kraftowitz and Edward Salem. Read the rest of the folio in the July/August 2026 issue of Poetry.
Source: Poetry (July/August 2026)