Summer Roof Every night that summer when we went to bed on the flat roof, I staye awake watching the opposite roof where he was, a tiny light turning on every time he puffed his cigarette.
Once I was shown his paintings and I went home and wrote his name all over my books.
I kept imagining what he would say how he would respond. I imagined being married to him, looking after him when he fell ill cooking for him, washing his hair. I imagined sleeping on the same roof.
A whole year went by and we never talked then suddenly an empty house opposite us, an empty roof, not staring back and sleepless nights for me.
Years later we met again the same man with a few fingers missing, bad tempered, not able to paint. We never spoke we remained on our seperate roofs. by Choman Hardi (is the youngst child of Kurdish poet Ahmed Hardi)
