What is death?
In woman's uterus
and the womb of the earth
Shuttle buses run.
What is happiness?
Tombstone,
A cemetery standing at the edge of language.
What is despair?
In the language of death
Describe life.
What is a face?
Migration of tears
The nearest harbor passing through.
What is nudity?
The beginning of the body.
What is a garden?
A female poet,
Composing poetry in sleep
Chant in silence.
What is the secret?
A closed door,
It will break when opened.
————Selected from "My Loneliness is a Garden·Selected Poems of Adonis"