Live Encounters Poetry & Writing February 2026.
Women at Forty, poems by Sameh Mahgoub.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Women at Forty
Women at forty
don’t understand
how time slips by,
so caught up
in the soul’s footsteps
echoing through the streets.
Women at forty
know exactly the space
between a word
and silence.
They tell little lies
like children do
while life stitches its patterns
across their brows.
They laugh like children
when desire lingers
in front of them,
and when a blush
colors their cheeks
like first light.
Women at forty
still don’t know where
storms gather
or how to offer the night
flowers that won’t fade,
or how
to walk ahead
without looking back.
They don’t dance
on their fine-boned heels—
too slender, too delicate.
Women at forty
still carrying dawn’s
restlessness
in heavy-lidded eyes,
still ripened
by winds from far-off hills
rising,
full-bloomed,
alluring,
gentle,
unyielding,
claiming their ground
without surrender.
As though they were the sun
fastening a gold earring
above the navy yard.
As though they were the night
plucking a hidden rose
from velvet folds
draped over
sleeping girls.
Women at forty
the hidden meaning
of violets in every poem,
the live coal of metaphor
that poets throw
at keepers of rules.
Free Flowing
Her stride is a spontaneous blues
played in the mind of a cello
a joy slipped through the night,
selling gardenias
to the first street-corner mystic
whose eyes swam with color.
Her stride
a moon dancing a slow tango
in the rain,
an orchestra of dark hours
ringing to the beat of the upright piano.
Hey, sidewalk
hey, flower-seller
hey, stoop
hey, neighbors on the block:
pause at the corner and sing it low:
“Sweet morning, sweet dew
Sweet morning, our day is gardenias.”
Her stride
like the tide’s hungry return
from a journey through the dark,
like the warmth of sheltered coves,
like water’s thirst
that pulls back
until meaning stands naked,
then rushes,
then drowns
in what can’t be seen.
It stills
the wind sweeps it away.
It swells
sorrow sweeps it away.
Her stride is the sea
in all its deep-blue glory,
walking herself to shore.
Her stride
oh, her stride
the gardenias strewn
in doorways haunted me.
That tipsy high-heel haunted me,
treading the pavement
with ache and tenderness.
Her stride
that dance between the real and the felt
who gives the canvas its spell?
Who walks toward the other?
The lover’s blues
or the painter’s grief?
Her stride
oh, her stride
I went out hunting deer,
and was caught
by the eyes of the deer.
© Sameh Mahgoub
Dr Salwa Gouda is an accomplished Egyptian literary translator, critic, and academic affiliated with the English Language and Literature Department at Ain Shams University. Holding a PhD in English literature and criticism, Dr. Gouda pursued her education at both Ain Shams University and California State University, San Bernardino. She has authored several academic works, including Lectures in English Poetry and Introduction to Modern Literary Criticism, among others. Dr. Gouda also played a significant role in translating The Arab Encyclopedia for Pioneers, a comprehensive project featuring poets, philosophers, historians, and literary figures, conducted under the auspices of UNESCO. Recently, her poetry translations have been featured in a poetry anthology published by Alien Buddha Press in Arizona, USA. Her work has also appeared in numerous international literary magazines, further solidifying her contributions to the field of literary translation and criticism.
Sameh Mahgoub is a distinguished Egyptian poet and a graduate of the prestigious Faculty of Dar Al Uloom. An active figure in the international literary scene, he has participated in major cultural festivals across the Arab world, including in Tunisia, Morocco, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, and Jordan. His expertise is recognized through his roles on the jury committees for prestigious state awards. Mahgoub’s celebrated work has earned him numerous accolades, such as the Ahmed Shawky Shield, the Al-Babtain Award for his poem “On the Rhythm of His Laughter, He Walks,”