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.


Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)