1. The nearness of illness and the distance of family and homeland
Are two things that made me sick in my body

2. My she-camel yearned for the snowy mountains
Yet she is not sturdy enough for the journey

3. Why should I express the arts of passion complaining
When the tender branches complain in their bending

4. I remained in dusty Basra, finding myself
With tears that I washed my eyelids and teeth with

5. Sometimes you see me in it withering, my flowers
From emaciation, and sometimes my branches dried up

6. To the dancing of its fleas in my clothes
First and last and the humming of insects in my ears

7. And its salty water and the sun that melted
The sands of the desert and dissolved the rocks of the springs

8. And the shaking off of a visitor who keeps lowering me
Off the back of my patience, and sleep does not carry me

9. When a starving grim woman sneaks into my bed
She drinks up my freshness and eats my fat