For this week’s Translation Tuesday, we bring you a poem by Egyptian writer Hoda AbdelKader Mahmoud, translated by Mohamed ElSawi Hassan and Jennifer Jean. Simultaneously delighted by the temerity of a young interlocutor and agonizing over her own age and childlessness, the unnamed narrator of this poem faces herself in the mirror and worries about her frown lines, takes pleasure in the perfect skirt, and feels a wash of nostalgia at the sound of an old song. Torn between comfort in her new identity—the Auntie!—and anxiety over her future, she finds solace in the memory of her own mother and female ancestors, with whom she shares a bond through time, and beyond age.

You are old, Auntie!
This phrase delights, then turns me to face the mirror.
My heart is obliged to follow, every time, and
I catch it red-handed, in a small panic.
I joke with it about the idea of wrinkles and sagging breasts.
My hormones are still the same from late childhood!
And the fact that aging does not come.
If it does, it confirms my beloved will never arrive,
and that Auntie will never be replaced with Mom. READ MORE…