THE NEW CAESARS

by Amari Hamadene

Translated by Kate Purkhardt, Lucie Brisson,
and Amari Hamadene

I'm dying, Egypt. Cleo, I haven't been stabbed or poisoned. I have three food tasters. Two died. One lived. I drank the Champagne of the one who was alive. I'm dying, Egypt. The killer is not an army, but old age. Cleo, it is your breasts, small waist, red hair That makes me want to live. Cleo, I'm too self-conscious About being a ruin of time, the skin has started to drop On my jawbones, my neck skin sags, I have a new wrinkle that spirals between my lips and nose, Yes, too self conscious of my ugliness to confess to someone as young, as beautiful, as sensual as you that I desire to lick your body with my aged tongue. Cleo, I get tongue-tied when we meet discuss politics, not awkward about politics, for I can talk and talk about the monarchical regime. But I didn't come here to talk about politics. But as I verbalize in a garrulous and prolix manner, I never say what I want to say. I never say : I want to hold you naked in my antiqued, skinny, wrinkled arms.