The Art of Marxism: poetry

After Release From Prison

by Nāzım Hikmet Ran


Awake.
Where are you?
At home.
Still unaccustomed —

awake or sleeping —

to being in your own home.
This is just one more of the stupefactions

of spending thirteen years in a prison.
Who's lying at your side?
Not loneliness, but your wife,

in the peaceful sleep of an angel.
Pregnancy looks good on a woman.
What time is it?
Eight.
That means you're safe until evening.
Because it's the practice of police
Never to raid homes in broad daylight.