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)
