I Was In A Hurry

By Dunya Mikhail

Translated By Elizabeth Winslow

Yesterday I lost a country.

I was in a hurry,

and didn't notice when it fell from me

like a broken branch from a forgetful tree.

Please, if anyone passes by

and stumbles across it,

perhaps in a suitcase

open to the sky,

or engraved on a rock

like a gaping wound,

or wrapped

in the blankets of emigrants,

or canceled

like a losing lottery ticket,

or helplessly forgotten

in Purgatory,

or rushing forward without a goal

like the questions of children,

or rising with the smoke of war,

or rolling in a helmet on the sand,

or stolen in Ali Baba's jar,

or disguised in the uniform of a policeman

who stirred up the prisoners

and fled,

or squatting in the mind of a woman

who tries to smile,

or scattered

like the dreams

of new immigrants in America.

If anyone stumbles across it,

return it to me, please.

Please return it, sir.

Please return it, madam.

It is my country. . .

I was in a hurry

when I lost it yesterday.

Copyright Credit: Dunya Mikhail, "I Was In A Hurry" from The War Works Hard. Copyright © 2005 by Dunya Mikhail. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.