New Poetry: Maha Al Aswad’s ‘Death in Six Images’
This poem is an extra from the Spring 2025 GRIEF issue of ArabLit Quarterly, available now at Gumroad, ArabLit.org/Shop, and elsewhere. Also: Sign up for our weekly poetry newsletter at arablitpoetry.substack.com.
Death in Six Images
By Maha Al Aswad
Translated by Sara Elkamel
1
They walk beneath the sky. As their arms extend. As they grow new arms. As they carry their children. As they lug their houses behind them. As they avert their eyes from the tanks assembled on both sides of the road. As the tanks watch them from both sides of the road. As they crawl above the earth. As they sprout beneath the earth. As they arch their backs. As they lift their heads. As they pour down. As the viscous black river flows in their wake.
2
How does the moon appear while a massacre is committed in its light?
The tragedy of the question may equal the tragedy
of the answer: Nothing
out of the ordinary.
3
They took the center
of the square
the flagpole planted
in their throats
its banner circling them like the ghost
of death
blood pours down
descends towards the river
I am in the center of that river
and the river courses
beneath my feet
blood
and water
I walked five years towards salvation
when the waves blanket me, I hear them roaring from below, and I see
decades dying
all around me
and suddenly
I am the river
its flood
black
in my depths monsters ingest me
and scream
in the ecstasy of certain
salvation.
4
My biggest fear was not dying;
it was becoming my mother.
Death is an old roommate/
a friend sending you video clips/
your guardian angel/
a hand grabbing hold of your foot as you stare into the abyss/
a regular guest on your to-do lists
– buy groceries
– death
– change lightbulb
– confirm saturday’s appointment
Or
– respond to mail
– water the plants
– death
– marinate meat
But today
it dangles from the ceiling
and stares unwaveringly into my face.
5
Dalí created us and named us “Surrealist Warriors.”
He gave us our weapons: a spear with a splintered mirror for a head; a slingshot without a stone; and a butterfly net.
We rode the ghosts of horses, and fought the good surrealist fight.
Now we sit inside our lustrous armor like turtles with amputated heads.
6
The real tragedy of Sisyphus is not the boulder’s weight, nor the eternal nature of his punishment; it is that he must push the boulder alone.
As for his punishment, it was his sober consciousness; punishment is realizing the punishment.
Camus was wrong. One must imagine Sisyphus oblivious
Sara Elkamel is a poet, journalist, and translator based in Cairo. She holds an MA in arts journalism from Columbia University and an MFA in poetry from New York University. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, Gulf Coast, and The Iowa Review, among other publications. A Pushcart Prize winner, Elkamel was also awarded the Michigan Quarterly Review’s 2022 Goldstein Poetry Prize, Tinderbox Poetry Journal’s 2022 Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Prize, and Redivider’s 2021 Blurred Genre Contest. She is the author of the chapbook Field of No Justice (African Poetry Book Fund & Akashic Books, 2021).