I feel like weeping, I really do, A girl lost in the streets Unable to calculate or count Always laughing She fills herself with the smiles of passers-by Knows neither ridicule Nor pity Clasps a kitten to her bosom And walks the streets untidy hair a tatty cloak From her pocket A bean pod drops A dry crust of bread. She swallowed The teeth she lost laughing As she had no mother to tell her the heat: “The sun, sunshine” And because an old woman at Bab al-Khalq Told her a swallowed molar Made another tooth grow She did not get rid of dry crusts And refrained from biting her nails Until the season of teething. ... She is all alone Without family Without friends And people don’t love her She sings In spite of defects Cannot pronounce ‘esses’ A man laid her on a waterwheel Made her pregnant of a girl Who died Of dry bread She has no family. Why people don’t love her? Finally, she thinks of weeping Yes The village idiot feels like weeping On your shoulder You don’t scold her When she can’t count her fingers You don’t take a peep at her thigh When her dress shrinks In cold weather. __________ Translated by Kees Nijland