translated by Marine Cornuet

Outside, close by, the earth quivers
Under a thin layer of heat 
The slumbering city opens up to the sun 
Like a fig over its thorns 
As they uncatch togetherness, bodies 
Shiver in thoughts of sorrel 
And go dressed in yesterday’s clothes 
To give birth again to a dabbling day 

Memories sour like whey 
Rise to my throat and I let them speak 

Outside, milk steams and bread toasts 
The joyous air is veined with hot milk 
and bread – blond fish in nets 
Fruits dripping with wheat scales – 
Long milk – smooth fields in buckets. 
What in my hunger shines more than bread 
More than your morning shoulder 
Where a final softness settles me 

Memories tender like bitten crumb 
Open my unslakable appetite  

Veined in bread the air spreads 
To windows reddened with lukewarm 
Geraniums – to windows curly 
With basil and blue parsley 
– To these windows as insatiable 
As the two of us and as my eyes, 
Open over a crimped roof cutting 
Into the round sun of an apple 

Memories so precise they could be yesterday’s  
Seize me – bitter oil where I hear  
Fritters fry outside right above ground 
Flat moons bitten by the milk teeth 
Of children who know how to laugh 
The upright wind twists the fruity street  
Where wooden crates rot away 
The wind, sweet with henna, drops 
Into our destructive arms (these beautiful 
Charmed snakes) a sunny morning 

Those close memories could they be an outcome  
And are they to come? 

Translucent mornings where the weight 
Of my head on your arm relieves me 
Like a trust so total 
I can almost touch it 
Peace slips into the soft sheets 
Speckled with milky coffee – proof 
Of a peaceful life – In your neck 
A joy as pure as snow is beating 

And the rumor of the street carries to the end of the world 
The health of our love like leavened bread 

Anna Gréki (1931–1966) was an Algerian poet of French descent. Her poetry was deeply influenced by the landscapes of the Aurès Mountains, where she was born, and by the memories and friendships formed there during her childhood. As a young adult, Gréki joined the struggle for Algerian independence and was subsequently arrested, tortured, and incarcerated for her activism. The poems she wrote in prison in 1957–58 were smuggled out and published in her first collection, Algérie, capitale Alger, in 1963 (S.N.E.D), while Gréki was in exile in Tunis. Her second collection, Temps forts (Présence Africaine) has been recently published in English as The Streets of Algiers and other poems (trans. Souheila Haïmiche and Cristina Viti, Smokestack Books, 2020). The English translation of Algérie, capitale Alger (co-published by Pinspo and Lost & Found) is forthcoming in the fall of 2024. A prolific writer and thinker, Gréki wrote many essays on language, power, politics, and the role of the artist in Algeria, and left behind an unfinished novel. 

Marine Cornuet is a Brooklyn-based translator and poet. Her translation of French-Algerian poet Anna Gréki’s 1963 collection, Algérie, capitale Alger, is forthcoming with Pinsapo Press and Lost & Found: the CUNY Poetics Document Initiative. Her translation of Kaveh Akbar’s collection Pilgrim Bell into French is forthcoming with Le Castor Astral in the spring of 2024. She holds an MFA from Queens College, CUNY, and is a co-founder of the literary journal Clotheslines.