Letter To My Wife
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.
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