Phoenix

Here is my rise from the ashes of a love

That had burnt me in all my essence.

Here is the torn shell of fear

Dead and disremembered forever.

Here I drink to death for it is the thought of it

That brings joy to my living.

I am alive as the sunlight

Cast on the walls of this expeditious city.

I breathe in the air with hope and blow a kiss

To the people who do not heed my sprightly smiles.

I flap my wings with faith and rise to sing

To all the walking dead: “Come alive, come alive!”

Here is my rise in a poem

On the white sheets of this blue book

 As my body rises from the sheets

 Of your bed fulfilled and divine.

Here I greet the shimmer in your eyes

 And bid farewell to fears. 

I shall walk without fear on the air

 And all the five elements

For I imagine you watching me

 And hear your wings flapping next to mine.

Here I shall fly fearlessly forever.

Kisses

Kiss I

I once had a kiss;

It tasted of raw pear

And consciousness.

It was snowing

Like in Moscow,

The kitchen

Like a faceted chamber

In Kremlin

And I was melting

Like a snowwoman

In his glowing cheeks.

The mirror looked pale

With the fear of the unknown,

Unknown but not like death.

Curtainless windows

 Staring at snow

Were trapped in their frames

And didn’t dare to step

 Beyond the boundaries.

When I went to sleep

 I wished the world

Buried in snow

By morning.

Kiss II

I once had a kiss

That tasted of carrot and freedom.

It left me speechless.

It felt like a new language on my tongue,

A language I did not know,

But wished to speak.

I tried  

My lips uttered

“Spaseeba, Moya Luboyv”

On his lips.

Blooming

I am blooming with the winter fading in my background

The fresh green appearing on my twigs

Tickling the blue beyond.

The earth pivots

Round the axis of my spine.

I am as bronze as life.

The spring blossoms

When I smile.

I never pose

I just merge with the background

In the photo you are shooting.

An Untraditional Haiku

The sound of guitar

The smoke of cigar,

A wandering bee, and me.

Letter to an Old Love

That night, the city lights were stars

I was hovering among them like a cloud

Lost and ecstatic in your presence,

Feeling no traffic, no sound, no smog

Willing to go to the end of the world.

You said our future was a walk

From Azadi Square to Zanjan Park

But I, at the end of the walk,

Saw a house with you

Like the first lady of a Shah.

You said how busy was your life

With your exams and studies

And the medical civil service  

But I heard you saying “wait for me”

So I waited and waited for three years.

For three years, I picked up the phone at 9:00

We talked until 9:30 at night

You listened to my every single poem

And I saved your mesmerizing voice

Your laughter, in my ear until the next call.

For three years, every single weekend we met

I cherished every kiss at dark, every hug in cabs,
The smell of Safari on my hands

And could not get you off my skull

Even for a second of time till the next meeting.

But at the end of three years of homeless love

You started dogging me bad

Blaming me for all the mistakes I did not make

And I apologized for every wrong I had not done

Until the night I cried and threw away

The perfume, the gold bracelet, the scarf

The T-shirt, the blue back pack, the books

The dried bouquets, the box of candy wraps,
Gum wraps, gift wraps, your poems

And you!

Meeting an Iraqi in Hyatt Hotel’s Elevator in Tehran after the War

He got in on the 20^th floor. Handsome.

“An Iranian?

A foreigner?”

I asked myself.

He looked both familiar and strange.

His beard was familiar

But the look in his brown eyes…

“Where are you from?” I dared.

“Iraq”

I startled. Leaned against the corner.

The last country on the planet

That I expected, though a neighbor.

“What are you doing here?”

“Playing Volleyball.”

“Playing Volleyball!” I yelled loud.

“You killed my uncle,

Made my pregnant aunt widowed

My cousin Mohammad orphaned before he was born.

And my friend Fatima was only twelve

When you killed her father

She- she fainted over her father’s coffin.

You killed millions of young men

Sons, brothers, fathers, uncles

Destroyed people’s houses and cities

Bombed our schools, and hospitals

To come here to play Volleyball?!”

I ringed my hands round his neck

“You are dead man!

You’d better not come!

You are soooo dead!”

The elevator stopped on the ground floor.

“Welcome to Iran”

I heard my soft voice though could not smile.

And he stretched out his arm towards the door,

“After you, lady”

And I stepped out.

A breath in peace.

The next day I heard

Iran-Iraq Volleyball game result

Was equal, too.

Romance

Translated from the Persian of Granaz Mousavi

There’s a crow at my window

I scrunch

And scream at him

He stares

And doesn’t fly off

That is all I get

A winter sunset

And a crow who is in love with me