My Love (Do Not Ask Me)

By Nizar Qabbani

Do not ask me, the name of my love

I fear for you, from the fragrance of perfume

contained in a bottle, if you smashed it,

drowning you, in spilled scent

By God, if you even croaked a letter,

Lilacs would pile up on the paths

Do not look for it here in my chest

I have left it to run with the sunset

You can see it in the laughter of doves

In the flutter of butterflies

In the ocean, in the breathing of dales

and in the song of every nightingale

in the tears of winter, when winter cries

in the giving of a generous cloud

Do not ask about his lips…as elegant as the sunset

And his eyes, a shore of purity

And his waist, the sway of a branch

Charms…which no book has contained

Nor described by a literate's feather

And his chest, his throat, enough for you

I won't breath his name, my lover…