translated from Turgut Uyar’s Turkish by Selda Suer and Deniz Suer

an ancient remark: horses, kittens, sparrows,

                dogs dozed off in nooks and throughout the years

the third sibling of sorrow and joy, herself in every street

                taken in as a greeting

and the pressure of the sea’s roots compressing green and some clouds

                in a flux, in a thickening from east to north

an ancient remark: a heated exchange in September

                leads to the longest days on a bandit’s bed,

love’s other name is now the lost war in cities

                it is taught historically

as is the shame old jackets feel when not hung

                beside brilliant fur hats on engraved hangers

an ancient remark: blood, vomits the sun livid and remembers

                her in tallgrass near a neglected rocky waterfront

remembers the way a hand holds the neck

                of a decanter as it's filled—regardless of all this

what am I saying: if streams and creeks are this calm and clean

                and so determined in meadows, if its beds are protected,

if the shroud that the sun has sheared fits the milked night’s

                obediently dried out and shadowed body

here is the ache, here, the neigh of horses like rebels

                in lightened night

I say let me stay, let me stay, but it doesn’t work

I am leaving.