Hamra Night

by Saadi Youssef

A candle in a long street

A candle in the sleep of houses

A candle for frightened shops

A candle for bakeries

A candle for a journalist trembling

in an empty office

A candle for  a fighter

A candle for a woman doctor over patients

A candle for the wounded

A candle for plain talk

A candle for the stairs

A candle for a hotel packed with refugees

A candle for a singer

A candle for broadcasters in their hideouts

A candle for a bottle of water

A candle for the air

A candle for two lovers in a naked flat

A candle for the falling sky

A candle for the beginning

A candle for the ending

A candle for the last communiqué

A candle for conscience

A candle in my hand.

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Saadi Youssef (first published in Modern Poetry of the Arab World'

translated, and edited by Abdullah  Al- Penguin'1986)