Loss is an old friend
“Loss is an old friend with holes in her hands.”
—no one
A wolf with sharp metaphors,
I was brave enough to let you
in
I’ll wear my courage like a little red dress
under the Damascene rain
It is too opaque for God’s eyes
to penetrate me
//
Mold grows between my breasts
I had a lover who left me for the woman I hid under my tongue
He left his kisses in the ashtray
Four years ----
The lips of war have grown too large.
February 2020
What’s that sound?
“What sound?”
Someone’s at the door.
“Someone stole the key to our story.”
Wait, it’s coming from the sky.
“The sky is too far.”
Someone made it there.
“Your arms are too short.”
The ceiling is getting lower.
“No need to reach up to the light switch.”
It’s getting dark.
“A friendly reminder to go to sleep.”
I can’t see anything.
“It’s night time.”
I can’t hear anything.
“Stay with me.”
/…/
“What’s that sound?”
May 2025
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Ibtihal Rida Mahmood is a writer, editor, translator, and poet. She is the translator and co-editor of Snow in Amman: An Anthology of Short Stories from Jordan (2015) and the English translator of Yassin al-Haj Saleh’s The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy (2017). Her essays, translations, and criticism have appeared in The Markaz Review, New Internationalist, Qantara, The Seattle Globalist, and Women Writers, Women’s Books. Her poetry and literary translations have been featured in international anthologies, including The Art of Being Human (2013), Premio Mondiale di Poesia Nosside (2014), and Versus Versus: 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets (2025). She is a contributing editor at ArabLit, a non-profit, crowd-funded collective and digital platform dedicated to Arabic literature in translation.
Rida, nice to meet you. Reading this, I felt like when we get anxious, we end up asking ourselves the same questions over and over again. Even when we tell ourselves, "It's okay, you'll be fine," the worry somehow finds its way back after a while. That's the feeling I got from your poem. 😇