A Poem by Dua Al Bostani Al Fattohi

[If the world is your oyster, what could a prison be?]

After Inji Efflatoun*

A place for undesired pearls:
behind the bars   nothing troubles me
anymore          not even the free souls
wandering outside along the Nile
not even my jailer’s smirking
eyes begging me   persisting:
Love me Love me
as if I were
the last day of your confinement
                                    in blue-tinted nights
women tell their stories of confining walls
of complaining windows
of men chatting about iron bars
The women count the barred windows
each night to sleep:
One window… Two windows… Three windows
I count with them   lose count
fall asleep           in my dreams
I’m often a lilac bird               snatching
scraps of bread off Pan's head
a woman smiles and says
Remember me when you’re free outside
letters keep coming   from friends
my jailer’s smirking eyes read:
Are you well?
How do you comfort your morning after
each night?
How do you console your wounds when
seasons break their promises?
                                    When I’m out of this cell
will lilac trees   recognize me
as one of April’s daughters
by my lilac dress?
Will birds fly away
every time I try to capture them
in a painting?

*This poem is inspired by Inji Efflatoun's painting, ‘Dreams of the Detainee’. Inji Efflatoun (1924–1989) was an Egyptian painter and activist in the women's movement. She was a pioneer of modern Egyptian art and one of the important Egyptian visual artists of the period.

During Gamal Abdel Nasser's regime, she was arrested under a decree authorising the detention of women taking part in political activism. Over the course of her four-year incarceration, Efflatoun's paintings, including ‘Dreams of the Detainee’, captured the grim conditions in which she lived.

Dua Al Bostani Al Fattohi (Twitter @duaalfattouhi) is a poet and English Language teacher from Hama, Syria. She holds a bachelor's degree in English Literature. She writes poetry in both English and Arabic. Her work has appeared in harana poetry, IceFloe Press, and Pamenar Magazine. Her poems in Arabic have appeared translated into both English and Italian in RIVISTA. She has been nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize.