Letter To My Wife

                                Bursa

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.

Butyou 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

Iwill see my friends and you,and I'll goto 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)