Letter To My Wife

11-11-1933

                                Bursa Prison

My one and only!

Your last letter says:

"My head is throbbing,

              my heart is stunned!"

You say:

"If they hang you,

          if I lose you,

                    I'll die!"

You'll live, my dear—

my memory will vanish like black smoke in the wind.

Of course you'll live, red-haired lady of my heart:

in the twentieth century

                   grief lasts

                        at most a year.

Death—

a body swinging from a rope.

My heart

        can't accept such a death.

But

you can bet

    if some poor gypsy's hairy black

              spidery hand

                 slips a noose

                     around my neck,

they'll look in vain for fear

                     in Nazim's

                         blue eyes!

In the twilight of my last morning

I

will see my friends and you,

and I'll go

to my grave

           regretting nothing but an unfinished song…

My wife!

Good-hearted,

golden,

eyes sweeter than honey—my bee!

Why did I write you

                  they want to hang me?

The trial has hardly begun,

and they don't just pluck a man's head

                            like a turnip.

Look, forget all this.

If you have any money,

              buy me some flannel underwear:

my sciatica is acting up again.

And don't forget,

a prisoner's wife

              must always think good thoughts.

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)