LitHub recently ran an Englishing of Ines Abassi’s “The Key,” translated by Koen De Cuyper and Hodna Bentali Gharsallah Nuernberg:
It’s from the anthology Home, published by Two Lines Press earlier this month, which features nine contemporary Arabic-language poets from eight different countries.
The last key I carried
dangles alone on the key rack
like a corpse at the gallows
the key to the house that is no longer our house
that won’t be our house tomorrow
is rusted with memories
and coated with the desert sand we left in our wake
and the house?
It’s available in full at LitHub.
More by Ines Abassi:
“Tattoo,” tr. Ali Znaidi
Four poems at The Brooklyn Rail, tr. Znaidi
An excerpt from ‘Bourguiba House’, tr. Sawad Hussain
Two poems in Words Without Borders, tr. Kareem James Abu-Zeid
