Galilo/le
By Samar Diab
Translated by Zeina Hashem Beck
If it turned, you would have seen England’s swans in the lap of a dying child in Somalia, placing their heads in his mouth, begging him to bite…
If it turned, a star would have entered my shoe as I stepped on the sky and looked at the anthills shining joyfully above my head…
If it turned, I wouldn’t need to look back and watch my mute neighbor’s mouth to understand what she’s saying: la vida es triste
Pardon me, but this is how I understand revolution…
If it turned, the sea would now be inside a bird’s nest, a bird opening its mouth for a small insect from its mother’s beak, a small insect sating the hunger of the ship kicking daily inside its stomach…
If it turned, dervishes would have worn their clean clothes and died standing…
If it turned, we would have discovered continents before they discovered us—
at the very least, America would have walked to baby Columbus and placed a pillow over his face for five minutes…
If it turned, my darling, the dead would have rained from their graves, and we would have walked under them, speaking about love and desire. The little ones would be a light drizzle and the rest a heavy rain, and we would have waited for them every season so the harvest wouldn’t spoil…
If it turned, God would have done something about these crowds of flailing creatures, he would have hammered nails into their hands as usual, ending this laughable fantasia…
If it turned, why does this shadow follow me even to poetry, even to hell?
If it turned, why is the womb in its place, and memory in its place, and the rose the goat will eat in its place? Pardon me again, but that’s how I understand revolution…
Galilo/le
it’s not what you think, my darling
bless your eyesight
it’s merely the egg of a frightened bird.
Samar Diab is a Lebanese poet living in Spain whose collections include «كوابيس بومة بيضاء» (Nightmares of a White Owl) and «هناك عراك في الخارج» (There’s a Fight Outside).
Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her collection of 40 palindromic sonnets, titled This Was Supposed to Be About Beauty, is forthcoming from Penguin Poets in Spring 2027. She’s the winner of the 2023 Arab American Book Award for Poetry for O, which was named a Best Book of the Year by Literary Hub and The New York Public Library. She’s also the author of Louder than Hearts and To Live in Autumn, as well as the chapbooks 3arabi Song and There Was and How Much There Was. Her work has appeared in LARB, Lithub, The Nation, Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. She’s the co-editor, with Hala Alyan, of the anthology We Call to the Eye and the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Descent. She’s the co-creator and co-host, with poet Farah Chamma, of Maqsouda, a podcast in Arabic about Arabic poetry. Find more about Zeina at zeinahashembeck.com.