“Hunger” is poetry by Yasser Abdel-Latif, translated by Yasser Abdel-Latif and Erica Mena-Landry. It appears in PEN America 12: Correspondences.

Hunger Why don’t I eat something new like the map of Sudan, for example or the Egyptian delta in a longitudinal slice from split branches to mouth a million generations of built up silt or eat a vast library full of immense books on the soul or a French dictionary until letters stream from my eyes Why don’t I eat an extremely beautiful woman raw save for her femininity Why don’t I eat a whole warehouse of steel nuts for high-octane trucks Why don’t I eat a Communist Party or a whole town, maybe Damascus Why don’t I eat something like Sayyed Darwish Hall at the Academy of Arts Why don’t I eat something forgotten in one dream and sought in vain in the next Hunger devours me and still I travel indifferent to what you’re eating …

Copyright © 2010 by Yasser Abdel-Latif. All rights reserved.