Poetry
Poetry,
I’m Tired of Writing Diaspora Poems
pulp. peel my skin,
spice, fry. bones
crushed, tasted.
swallow my tongue.
Poetry,
Nuestra Lengua Nativa
I told you, “no es importante”
I laid your head on my chest
told you, “escucha”
escucha la lengua de mi corazón
Poetry,
I am haunted
I recite prayers and my ancestors respond, there is no good, no evil only sand where language fragments and clumps when salt rushes to meet it
Poetry,
In the Forest Behind the City
Saving these children / means leaving their grandmother / to be swallowed by bullets and a lake
Poetry,
Scar
When your hand slit open on the metal edge of a
bulletin board, you kept it to yourself, embarrassed by your ordinary
humanness dripping onto the library carpet.
Poetry,
Elegy at Sea
Today I think about all the / immigrants lost to the sea, / to the whirlwind of loss that / engulfs everywhere in this / land where there are open graves / for our dead.
Poetry,
Hot and Wet
Who are you, device for my undoing, mechanism of my mania unfolding?
Poetry,
Woman, Life, Liberty
in this monster / of a city we call Tehran, where the strands / of your hair became the biggest thorn in / the side of this regime ravenous