by Mosab Abu Toha

The Last Kiss
On the way to the battlefield

At the door of a train
heading to the next station
before the battlefield,
her hands wrap around the back
of his neck.

(soldiers behind
on seats
or standing
someone sending a goodbye
text message
to a distant relative,
someone checking they still have
a family photo
a mother has put
in the jacket’s inner pocket.)

the young wife
still at the door of the train
smells her husband
smiles as she glimpses the lipstick
below his earlobe
from last night.
No textbooks or notebooks
no pencils or erasers in his backpack.
Only a toothpaste and a comb,
a few jet–black hairs from her,
a sandwich and a book of prayers,
and a list of names
they both brainstormed
for their to–be–born baby.
Around his neck, a scarf she bought
on his 30th birthday.
Around his wrist
a watch he kept from school years.

She kisses him, his cap hides
her tearful eyes.
“The doors are shutting soon. Beware!”
A voice of an old man comes out
through the train’s speaker.
And the young man’s voice is never heard
again.

by Mosab Abu Toha

Thanks
After Yusef Komunyakaa

Thanks to my mother always, but
especially when she called for me,
for me to join them at the table,
just seconds before shrapnel
cut through the window glass
where I stood to watch distant air strikes.
My mother’s voice, the magnet of my life,
swayed my head just in time.
Plumes of smoke choked the neighborhood.
It was night and when we ran into the street,
and Mother had left the cake in the oven. We smelled
the bomb smoke with burnt chocolate
and strawberry of the cake.

And thanks to the huge clock tower
which saved my life. I was crossing the street}
and my head, glued to my phone,
never heeded the honk of cars
or the wheels of vans
screeching onto the rough tarmac.
That bell tolled for me.
Sorry Death, but it was the eve of my birthday
and sorry Hemingway to answer your title
that way.

by Miho Nonaka

Then I stepped into a river
I didn’t know existed. Sand
and silt between my toes, water
reaching my calves. Leaves
rustled, so many waves of green
glinting like swords on both sides
of the river. I was not alone
as I waded deeper, water now
lapping my thighs, and the wind,
the river, and birds seemed to say,
ultimately, what I ever wanted to
become did not matter. The milk
had come in the night before —
my unshapely left breast dripping
with such functional beauty.
I was three times as old as Mary
when she delivered the Son of Man.
The wind loosened my hair, turning
the river’s surface into so many
silver combs. The child heavy
in my arms as he started sleeping
in earnest, his hands in tight balls.
Above us, the clouds drifted,
on the banks, the leaves darkened
and grew bright again. The wind
had led me through water
that was now up to the waist.
What pierced me then was neither
the light, nor the chill of water,
nor fear, nor desire, but a sudden
realization that in this world,
helplessness is not unbeautiful.

by Miho Nonaka

Jealousy, My Attempt
after Marina Tsvetaeva

How is your life with the woman who
adores purple?
Who is beautiful enough to claim that color?

How is her English?
Good enough? Can she discuss
more than daily matters like

the body and what it asks for?
When you visited me in America,
I took you to a shop, bought her

purple gifts. Does she laugh at your
halting Japanese? Do you recite to her
(as you did to me) the preface to Kokinshu?

The poetry of Japan has its roots
in the human heart and flourishes
in the countless leaves of words.

You never asked what my favorite color was.
It’s changed since
we shopped that day.

Do you enjoy her? A piece
of meat, who smiles and sings childish tunes,
helping you wash your sunburnt back

gently outside the tub?
I can almost see her fingers.
Have you lost your zeal? Forgotten about

your father, a Scottish missionary
who took his family to Hokkaido
when you were little?

Is she one of your gods now?
Her curves, appetizing
hieroglyphs? Isn’t it poetry

which, without exertion, moves
heaven and earth, stirs the feelings
of gods and spirits invisible to the eye . . .

Remember Lydia of Thyatira,
a seller of purple in the New Testament?
Her dye came from thousands

of sea snails boiled in lead vats for days.
Their mucus would turn Tyrian purple
through heat and light. Imagine

the stench. My Love, think of
that smell, that is inside her,
inside me.