Ghazal: A Letter
Of eight children, Mamani named you after sunlight.
Since I changed my name, you try harder to tread light.
Two decades ago you were Mama. But now
I can’t always wait, azizam, for your green light.
I still fear khalehs’ shame if I confessed to you
Things I have done on my knees in bare daylight.
Maybe we’re more alike than I know. Don’t
Everyone’s sheetstains glow under the blacklight?
Perhaps, god willing, when I am your age
Together we will remember and make light.
Whenever I’m brittle, a tough body knotted,
On my branches you, like a bluebird, alight.
You feed me the last piece of crunchy tahdig
Like it’s your mission that I’ll never weigh light.
In bed I lay dry-crying alone on schooldays
After you left for work before first light.
Are those red-eyed mornings the hushed reasons why
You furnished each room with a blurred nightlight?
I’ve never memorized Hafez or read how the olive lamp
Erupts untouched by fire — Light upon Light.
The first time I drove the old car, your knuckle
Bones white, we got stopped for your broken taillight.
So I heard – Az ki? – on the highways of life
We should go slow and travel light.
I must now reply to your message from Sunday.
This poem, it seems, has burned today’s light.
As sweet nabat dissolves in bitter tea, jigareh mani,
I hope you will see noor in a new light.
Poem for Iranian Women, after June Jordan
Since the first mother taught her daughter to grip the knife
carve a star in rough skin
crack back and peel to expose
a thousand fertile rubies stowed
in catacombs beneath filmy white veils
like these pomegranate seeds, the women
lie until hungry sky cracks
open a thousand flushed faces
shed a thousand white veils
the women, the streets
demand no bad hijabi
My mother, curls still wet
at a student protest leapt from the police bus
and at parties bleach blonde cousins miss
friends left for Canada or shot
and I watch news on the TV, stuffed
as aunts claim I need another piece of tahdig
the woman waves her white scarf
as if in surrender
I pool fesenjoon on rice, jeweled sweet-sour
pomegranate stains the countertop
a hijab floats in the Persian Gulf
***
Logo by Mina M. Jafari
We Are More is an inclusive space for SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) and SWANA diaspora writers to tell our stories, our way. Curated by Michelle Zamanian, this new column seeks to disrupt the media’s negative and stereotypical narratives by creating a consistent platform to be heard, outside of and beyond the waxing and waning interest of the news cycle. We’ll publish creative nonfiction, graphic essays, fiction, poetry, and interviews by SWANA writers on a wide variety of subject matter.
