This poem appears both at Robin Moger’s QisasUkhra and Youssef Rakha’s Sultan’s Seal. The translation is Moger’s:
Society. Brother,
I don’t know what to make of this word,
through I cross the distance between my bedroom and the kitchen
without feeling it at all.
Though when my wife winks at me
or kicks my ankles underneath the table
I try to look as though I understand,
and turn my head as though
it will walk by.
“It musn’t see you this way,” she says
and I put out my cigarette in a hurry.
