The woman with the expressive face

There she stands with a look of intense surprise on her face on an ordinary morning at ten on October 28 year 2012 in a street leading to burnt down and bombed out cities. The woman with the sensitively expressive face is standing on a pavement looking aghast at the uninterested people walking by. Just recently, in the middle of a performance, she left the theatre through the back door, and walked out on the play that is due to be performed at ten in the evening in ten years time.

At ten in the morning of October 28 in 2012 the woman with the expressive face stands on the street leading to the burnt down and bombed out cities looking with shock at the indifferent people walking by. Just recently, in the middle of the play, she left the theatre through the back door and left the play that will be performed in ten years time at ten in the morning.

The woman with the expressive face who left the theatre through the back door in the middle of a play that will be performed at ten in the evening, stands in shock amongst the indifferent people who walk by in the morning of October 28 in 2012 on a street that leads to burnt down and bombed out cities.
In shock she slams the door in the backdrops and enters the stage in the middle of the play that began late at night on Tuesday October 28 in 2012.

The Barricades

Hoopoes sang here and doves cooed, after May’s perfect peace
Twenty miles from here were boys and barricades, bullets whining above heads and
bullets shooting through heads
I wished that—despite the bullets and the barricades—I could be among the boys
surrounded on all sides by their cries of freedom
But after two minutes, even before it dawned on me, before the doves flew out
I wished that freedom had already come, that there was no reason for the barricades to
be there, or for bullets to whine over heads or shoot through them
I wished that the perfect peace of May would reign with the hoopoes’ song
and the doves’ cooing

Life Glittering Like Electric Sparks at the Muslin Market

Women from places across the sea left their whole lives behind on shelves in front of mirrors in order to come here
Women from the inland, from the coastal towns, and from the mountains
move stealthily into rooms of friends
Friends who in turn sneak in to fill the small rooms with little bags
Outside at the muslin market life glitters like electric sparks
Women who in the sparse light study tiny wrinkles in the crevices of their eyes,
leaving their memories to be dismembered on the coffee tables in the hotel rooms,
go down to the lobby: the city will have tea with milk when it wakes up