Iraq

Translated by Stephen Watts and Marga Burgui-Artajo

Iraq disappears with
every step its exiles take
and contracts whenever
a window's left half-shut
and trembles wherever
shadows cross its path.
Maybe some gun-muzzle
was eyeing me up an alley.
The Iraq that's gone : half
its history was kohl & song
its other half evil, wrong.

Rotterdam 1997