A Mask . . . For Majnoon Laila

I found a mask, so I liked that
I can become my other. I was less
than thirty years old, thinking the boundaries
of existence were words. And I was
sick with Laila like any other young man
when salt beams in his blood. When she wasn't
present as body she was the soul's image
in everything. Drawing me closer
to the orbits of planets. Distancing me from life
on earth. She is neither death
nor is she Laila. "I am you, Laila,
there must be a blue void for the endless
embrace." The river doctored me
when I threw myself to the river as suicide,
but a passerby brought me back, so I asked:
Why do you give me back the air and prolong
my death? He said: To know
yourself better . . . Who are you?
I said: I am Qyss Laila, and you?
He said: I am her husband

And we walked together in Granada's alleys
remembering our days in the Gulf . . . painlessly
remembering our days in the faraway Gulf

I am Qyss Laila
a stranger to my name and to my time
I do not shake absence like a palm tree trunk
to push away loss, or to bring back
the air on the ground of Najd. But I—
and the faraway is as it has been on my shoulder—
am Laila's voice to her heart
so let there be a wilderness for the gazelle
other than my path to her unknown.
Shall I diminish her desert or expand my night
for two stars on her path to unite us?
I only see on my road to her love
a yesterday amusing with my ancient poetry
the sleepiness of caravans in her night, and lighting
the Silk Road with my ancient wound.
Perhaps commerce also has a need
for what I'm in. I am of those
who die when they love. Nothing
is further than my name from the Jahili's ode
and nothing is further than my language from the prince
of Damascus. I am the first of losers. I am
the last of dreamers and faraway's slave. I am
a being who never was. And an idea for the poem
without land or body
without father or son

I am Qyss Laila, I am
and I am . . . no one!