Fave Poems 3: Nazim Hikmet - Letter to My Wife

                                 11-11-1933
                                 Bursa Prison

My one and only!
Your last letter says:
"My head is throbbing,
               my heart is stunned!"
You say:
"If they hang you,
           if I lose you,
                     I'll die!"

You'll live, my dear--
my memory will vanish like black smoke in the wind.
Of course you'll live, red-haired lady of my heart:
in the twentieth century
                    grief lasts
                         at most a year.
Death--
a body swinging from a rope.
My heart
         can't accept such a death.
But
you can bet
     if some poor gypsy's hairy black
               spidery hand
                  slips a noose
                      around my neck,
they'll look in vain for fear
                      in Nazim's
                          blue eyes!

In the twilight of my last morning
I
will see my friends and you,
and I'll go
to my grave
            regretting nothing but an unfinished song...

My wife!
Good-hearted,
golden,
eyes sweeter than honey--my bee!
Why did I write you
                   they want to hang me?
The trial has hardly begun,
and they don't just pluck a man's head
                             like a turnip.
Look, forget all this.
If you have any money,
               buy me some flannel underwear:
my sciatica is acting up again.
And don't forget,
a prisoner's wife
               must always think good thoughts.


Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)