From A Red Cherry
on a White-Tiled Floor

by Maram al-Massri

14

Women like me
do not know how to speak.
A word remains in their throats
like a thorn
they choose to swallow.
Women like me
know nothing except weeping,
impossible weeping
suddenly
pouring
like a severed artery.
Women like me
receive blows
and do not dare return them.
They shake with anger,
they subdue it.
Like lions in cages,
women like me
dream . . .
of freedom . . .

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