I shall knock three times at the door
My mother will know me, will say
the absent one has returned.

He casts his blue-black eyes beyond the rim of vision
his eyebrow rises
and the heart is constantly watchful.
The street is wider than vision
The hollow feet of time have no edges
Hungry questions shower down
over the bags of relief agencies.
— Who will come tonight?
— How will I sleep?
— Is solitude wide enough for the heart's song?
He stops
Damn this gate!
Between the stab-wound and the blade he saw his blood
a bedouin child on whose lips the horses of daily blows
rest their hooves
and the smell of death leaving its traces

Is there anyone who knows which seas inhabit
the heart of a prisoner released in the fifth summer?

He turns around
and the gate stands asking
four?
two?
three?

He stops.
The one who passes through this gate turns to stone
and the one who leaves may ...
The fifth summer scratches the memory of the bedouin child —
the river had abandoned him, wild deer had nurtured him.
My heart is taut
My mouth constricts my tongue
and the street — how wide it is!
It stretches from
The tears of a mother's farewell
to the artery of the fifth summer
I hear her ripe tears crying out
— Who is at the door?
The fisherman kneeling over the carpet
comes out to the broken steps
— Here you are at long last!
I can smell the familiar pledges of neighborhood women.
My soul is contagious with questions
and my aging skin penetrated by new air.
The gate crouches
Do not say no.
Do not say no.
Do not say it.

He turns —
what time is it now?
Feels his pocket, removes his watch, and laughs
It's still telling the time of the first summer!
He puts his watch away
Why the hurry?