biting into figs

you come and go checking on those figs
your eyes scanning the eyelets among branches
you leave the slums of the city
the rain’s hand-pan roofs above the ruins
you come and go checking on those figs –
hasn’t even one ripened yet?

figs suckle themselves
feed on their own milk
these figs are green just fledglings
there’s still time before they ripen
plenty of time before they wean

what all happens to you under the fig trees
this dizziness the weakness in your knees
an untraceable memory
you hear voices   see shadows
under the sinuous limbs of life and death
they whisper your name to each other
they look into your eyes – fig hungry

the sun is scorching the city
everyone’s wary of the other
everyone’s wary of themselves
the sand grains rasping the shoreline
does the world speak to you? what does it say?
you walk out of a forest
to walk into a forest in your dream

for days you’ve been checking on the figs
yet there’s time before they wean
a sapphire secretion stings your mouth
your hunger teething as it craves the fruit
digs into its flesh

when did you start hoarding
what isn’t yours before it offers itself to you
you came to check on the figs
your gaze tore into the firm unripe bodies
and look: they dried up on the branches
their milk dripped into the emptiness
their skin split open like a breast

the sky has followed you all your life
the sky has known your story
you used to hide yourself in a tree hollow –
why do humans bury, then forget where they bury?
you used to run from someone – who was it?
someone hurt you before you were weaned
you used to secrete your anger into the fig’s milk
but look: not even one has ripened

Translation from the Turkish