Seven stars on your face
Seven brown butterflies
I count them
And read in your eyes
The hieroglyphs of sorrow
This is who I am, you say
I carry my country
A wound and a rose
My memory is on my body
In these scars you love
In these hands, in this heart
Still lush with childhood
Behind curls of smoke
I watch you from a distance
And you contemplate the orange sky
Your soul brims over
With a glowing melancholy
I know it well
It is what transforms you
Into an citadel of silence
Only then I realise
The depth of your wound
This is how poetry is born
Green between your fingers
When you take refuge
In the shade of words
And solitude
I count them
Seven stars the night collects
For its celestial gallery
Only the scars remain
To remind me
Of who you are
© Imen Benyoub
The BeZine 