What does this mean?
Poem
By Siamak Kiarostami
September 22, 2000
The Iranian
It was said once
That what we say
Is easily forgotten.
I don't remember who it was
That told me that but
I remember the first time you stumbled
Across me and said my name,
Siamak.
You said my name like my mother
You made it beautiful-
Whispered it across my chest in the dark
And made it hypnotic
Siamak,
I became slave to my own name
I pretended to not hear when you'd call
Just to hear you say it.
Won't you say it?
Another forgotten wise man once said
We ask ourselves questions we already know
The answers to
My questions are out of order so
I let my lips press arbitrary answers
all over your body that very same night
you changed my name.
Hours of this interrogation had passed
We had certainly moved past any logic-
Begging for understanding
The salt of your skin asked my mouth
What does this mean?
Days later we sat in sunlight,
Two feet apart asking the same
What does this mean?
I mean what's going on?
There was no wise man here
Perhaps he only asked questions
He did not fear to answer
I am afraid to ask for her hand
I am using it to hold myself together.
What's does this mean? I don't know.
I see it though
My clarity comes at the expense of loss
Perhaps that is why
I remain unclear to you
Or vice versa
Let's keep things clouded.
