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Nazim Hikmet - Letter To My Wife
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11-11-1933
                                 Bursa Prison
My one and only!
Your last letter says:
"My head is throbbing,
               my heart is stunned!"
You say:
"If they hang you,
           if I lose you,
                     I`ll die!"
You`ll live, my dear—
my memory will vanish like black smoke in the wind.
Of course you`ll live, red-haired lady of my heart:
in the twentieth century
                    grief lasts
                         at most a year.

Death—
a body swinging from a rope.
My heart
         can`t accept such a death.
But
you can bet
     if some poor gypsy`s hairy black
               spidery hand
                  slips a noose
                      around my neck,
they`ll look in vain for fear
                      in Nazim`s
                          blue eyes!
In the twilight of my last morning
I
will see my friends and you,
and I`ll go
to my grave
            regretting nothing but an unfinished song…
My wife!
Good-hearted,
golden,
eyes sweeter than honey—my bee!
Why did I write you
                   they want to hang me?
The trial has hardly begun,
and they don`t just pluck a man`s head
                             like a turnip.
Look, forget all this.
If you have any money,
               buy me some flannel underwear:
my sciatica is acting up again.
And don`t forget,
a prisoner`s wife
               must always think good thoughts. 


Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
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