Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu-At Peace with the Star that Did Not Flee

At Peace with the Star that Did Not Flee

for Behçetoğulları

NOTHING
they came aboard on a night so long
that no one could ever leave behind their childhood

a single wave-sound before turning crescent, the moon
passed light through the open mouths of sleeping children
from one to another,
on a night stars were lavish with falling
a family lingered in the sky.

a woman – in a thundering snore,
in a deep breath, in the hump of
mothers’ necks drifting into rem sleep –
longed to grasp life all over again
and cast her existence into the sea.
wherever one turned in their sleep,
another’s childhood lay right there.

as they flung their slippers and shoes
both slowly and hastily into a corner,
entrapment, rage, groundless quarrels,
hollow insults,
and mothers pushing their children
toward the fathers with the resemblance
drawn on their faces the moment they were born,
all tangled into each other.

there were things they carried to that day and onto that boat:
beatings and punches first, a father’s kick, a father’s slap,
quick wits and clever lies sprouting from heads
dragged by the hair and slammed against walls by a father’s hand,
even when speaking truths as white as buttermilk,
always ending up punished anyway.

I.
the family crowded onto a boat,
each passing from deck to prow
without casting their stories into the water.
and yet each stepped aboard with their right foot.

mothers and fathers who looked back on their own childhood,
weighing every word before yelling at or scolding
their children whenever they ran wild
had already begun to go unseen and unheard
back when they were only their children’s age.
some had only just emerged from the shadow
of a silent father, a faded mother or a callous brother
turning their faces to the sun.

sleeping under the open sky aboard the boat,
in pursuit of a wish gathered from a shooting star,
some shivered six nights through
growing cold by dawn.

taking heart from Kṣīra Sāgara, a few waded
into the dark waters from the breakwater,
clouding slowly into raki-white,
slipping away,
leaving behind vivid white-pink nebulas.

II.
there was a woman on the boat, a woman,
when she went to her cabin, opened her suitcase
she tried to distinguish
the loneliness gathered from seven countries
by the scents on her clothes

III.
as the moon rose and began to hide itself
over the hills scattered unevenly,
the darkness shadowed by Mercury
overtook the bay where the boat lay at anchor.
had it been a millennium ago, looking at the sky together,
they would have seen omens, meanings eager to turn into a thousand more.
yet by the calendar of a human lifespan,
they had already relocated
the heaven in their imagination.

IV.
how pleasant snoring could be sometimes, thought the woman,
especially when released from the throat in sync with a fish’s leap,
the only devotee of snores that wiped away loneliness;
none other than her.

V.
they released the historical burden of the Mycenaeans
into the sea at a quiet Aegean Bay,
into it they crammed contempt, abandonment,
an unfinished painting, and the toothy grin of a boy
blowing out the candles on his birthday cake.
shoving at the edges, they crammed sickness, health,
the good and the bad days.
betrayals, desertions, prayers of ya Fattah and ya Shafi.
not yet satisfied, wherever space allowed,
they crammed funerals, weddings, celebrations, long, wide tables,
ballet recitals, divorces, report card days,
volleyball games, art exhibitions, and parent-teacher meetings,
and plans built on maybes, sealed with kisses.

VI.
they sought a bay where they could clearly see the stars;
our ears can now only tolerate the lapping of a single wave,
and only by turning back to the spell of the sky
can we return to the primal semiosphere
so decided the women and the children.
for this alone, they dropped anchor in fjords
where their eyes could open wide as teacups against the sky.

VII.
death, future, askew hope
an incomplete life, an interrupted flow,
minds conditioned to stay in the moment
all tangled, each a separate song,
Ariadne’s thread in hand,
a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old caretta bound to tangled destiny
as a little girl’s stroke brushed against the tortoise shell,
just a baby goat’s bleat away from the full moon,
the last star had fallen,
suitcases overflowed,
one by one, everyone aboard stepped back onto land
a woman, alone, watched the passengers depart,
starting with the women and children,
and the deaf fathers

resigned to being left upon the sea,
at peace with the star that did not flee,
expecting nothing, at ease and free,
sometimes homeland, sometimes Nazlı
let her name be.

Translated by Gözde Zülal Solak

Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu, born in Ankara in 1986, Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu is an author, academic, and activist. She has published five books in Turkish, exploring gender politics, migration, memory, and social injustice. She holds an MA in Turkish Language and Literature from Boğaziçi University and an MA in Human Rights Politics from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU).

Her work has received national and international recognition, and she has participated in literary festivals, writing residencies, and international literary programs across Europe. From 2021 to 2024, she was a fellow of PEN Germany and was selected for the 2020 UNESCO City of Literature Literary Residence at Kafka House in Prague, among other international residencies.

Her latest novel, Elfiye, drew attention from the US literary scene and received exclusive translation funding from the Janklow & Nesbit Literary Agency. Her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Asymptote, Circumference, Words Without Borders, Varlık, Notos, and Kitap-lık, among others. She divides her life between Nuremberg and Istanbul.