Sign Inventory, Week 9

Victim Number 48
-Mahmoud Darwish

•The poem is concerned with detailing permanence: death, darkness, prison, tattoos, mourning.
•The poem is also concerned with detailing imprisonment: prison, boxes, no travel pass.
•The victim has only a mother and a brother mentioned—the poem details the loss of familial ties with the death of the victim.
•The crime for which the victim is killed is never divulged.
•There are details of the flora or terrestrial in connection with the victim: a lamp of roses, dead upon the stones, boxthorn.
•There is also a jump from the terrestrial to the celestial with the repeated imagery of the moon.
•The speaker’s relation to the victim and the family is unknown, but he does claim ownership to his country: my country, placing himself akin to the victim if only nationally.
•The “they” who find the victim is also unclear and their relation to the speaker and/or the state.
•A travel pass is repeated—either one is in possession of one or not.
•There is also an importance of carrying items in this poem: the victim carries piastres, matches, a travel pass and his brother carries a box of garbage and other boxes.