I gave up love
being satisfied with the quiet of shadows
And memories.

Time was past, lost,
moments exploded
by the rain of bombs.

At nightfall
I don’t brush my dreams any more.
At nightfall
I don’t care for the wandering sun any more.

At nightfall
I leave the frightened moon in the sky
to shelter under the ground.

I am neither a woman nor a poet any more.

Night by night
more and more,
I feel real.

Like the bloody sound of alarms,
Like the roaring anti-aircraft rounds,
Like the falling bombs and rockets,
which turn the ruins and ashes
into eternal reality;
I feel night by night more real
and old,

so old and real that in the mirror
I see nothing anymore
but an aisle of empty chairs.

Oh, isn’t it enough?
What does a man need
more than a loaf of bread,
a quiet night
and an armful of bleak love,
for giving up and being satisfied
with the quiet of shadows
and memories?