Fairuz lifts her lips
to the sky.
Let it shower jasmine
on those who once met
and didn't know they were in love.
I listen to her sing in the Fiat of Muhammad,
in the noon street of Ibn Gabirol:
A Lebanese singer singing in an Italian car,
driven by an Arab poet from Baqa-al-Garbiyye,
in a street named after a Hebrew poet in medieval Spain.
And the jasmine?
If it drops from the skies of Armageddon
it will turn
for a moment
into a green
light
at the next intersection.



translated, from the Hebrew, by Tsipi Keller