Two Poems

Bronze statue in Baku’s Fountain Square of a young woman in contemporary attire talking on a mobile phone, erected in 2014.
Bronze statue in Baku’s Fountain Square of a young woman in contemporary attire talking on a mobile phone, erected in 2014. Photo: Alison Mandaville

I have broken a cup

There is an ache in every corner of this kitchen.
Every word from this young man rains irritation,
rains anger.
Three cups sit on the table to be broken;
the dearest of them is looking at me.
Every holiday, the loving girl earns a flower, a bracelet, or a kiss.
Last holiday I got a cup from my furious love.
It was blue, I loved blue.
But what is the meaning of the yellowed glue stains that spot it?
When I tore myself from my furious love,
was it the fate of this cup,
trembling, trembling in my hands,
to fall to the ground,
to crack
and shatter?
Watching my eyes, they
insulted and beat me.
I did not cry.
But for the spotted one that fell by chance,
for the companion of my joyous holiday,
at the breaking of this cup,
my eyes filled.
In our house, where every corner aches, there is a kitchen.
In this kitchen
my sea-colored, yellow-speckled cups often break.

 

Contacts

In the list of numbers dialed recently
your name descends – slowly, slowly.
This is how loves are forgotten.
You are removed
from the list of close friends on Facebook.
I no longer see what you write there.
More time passes, we are no longer close.
You change your passwords,
and I lose my faith in you.
Evenings, we have tea in the center of the city
with people we haven’t seen in years.
I put on my dresses forbidden by you –
I don’t forgive you.
To triumph against this love,
you have painted yourself with sorrow,
as have I.
A message arrives on my phone.
I know it can’t be you.
Here, let me open it –
just perhaps, it might be you.


A pianist and educator, Aysel (Nino) Novruz was born in 1985. Interested in literature from childhood, she published her first article at the age of ten in Günash (Sunlight) magazine. Her literary works are regularly published in different periodicals.