“30” by Rana Samir

When you still cried with your eyes shining

and wore the school uniform

and beamed with every toy your grandma gave you,

there were many birds soaring in your eyes,

flying high up, beyond the sky.

There were vast meadows with flowers,

with colours never seen before.

I wanted to tell you: on the rare occasions you look at me

I no longer understand your eyes, for in them are neither birds

nor meadows.

I see only the look of youth, the one all too ready to execute the sentence …

I find myself guilty beyond doubt

of countless hours embracing fictitious beings

instead of holding you, kissing you, lulling you to sleep.

I left you counting those birds on your own,

lost in the depths of the meadows where I last saw you

tumbling in the soil

and growing handsome.

Immanuel Mifsud

Immanuel Mifsud was born in Malta in 1967. He is a six-time national award-winning author, playwright, and visual artist. Two volumes of Mifsud’s poetry have been published in the United Kingdom and Ireland: The Play of Waves (Arc Publications, 2017), translated by Maurice Riordan, won the English PEN Award; and Confidential Reports (Southword Editions, 2005). His memoir, In the Name of the Father (and of the Son), was published in the United Kingdom by Parthian Books in 2019 and in French translation by Gallimard, as well as in other countries. A recipient of the European Union Prize for Literature, Mifsud’s works have been translated into seventeen languages. Mifsud is a professor at the University of Malta.

Ruth Ward

Ruth Ward is a writer and translator of both poetry and fiction. Her most recent work, Váh (Midsea Books, 2024), is a bilingual collaboration, with Immanuel Mifsud, of text and visual art. Ward’s translations have been broadcast on the BBC and read at both the Library of Congress and the Delegation of the European Union to the United States. She lives in New England.