counting the seconds and the movements of emptiness

He breathed deeply,
when the street awoke,
with the very features of yesterday.
He was not ready yet
to deal with the morning.
In her first absence,
what worries him
is not this morning,
he can make it through another morning.
What really worries him
is the mornings after,
his sitting absent-mindedly,
suffocated by air,
counting the seconds
and the movements of emptiness.
One little kick will do,
in his tremendous freedom,
to put love in order again,
and to calm the quivering world.
Just one little kick,
for the sake of bliss, which
overflows from her hands, roaming
on his back.

[‘Enayat Jaber {1958- } 'Circle' {trans. from the Arabic by Wen Chen Ouyang}, from Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond]