POETRY

Just Another Neda

 

Hello Iran!
I am your bastard daughter
I know my fathers
Nassir-i-din Shah and his regal clowns
and my mothers
braid-chopped women of Harem interiors,
I am your bastard daughter,
the Bam castle
whose two feet sank in earthquakes
the Zayandeh river
no longer
flowing…
 
It has been one hundred years
and this is the very first letter I have written you
I know your father is dead
and your mother wears a tiara
on her severed head,
your son has been a soldier
a chemical cripple of ravaged cities,
I know
your wars have always been “sacred battles”
and your celestial books,
the miracles of blind gods who have known the Braille alphabet,
this is perhaps why only the dead
can decipher your dark history.
 
Hello Iran!
I am your bastard daughter
pregnant today,
and my fetus is a feeble sappling
shivering and losing her leaves
each time she broods over the rape
of her little sisters.
 
Hello Iran!
I am your bastard daughter
and I love to keep calling your name
for them to notice you are still alive,
otherwise
you will be just another Neda,
famed
only for dying.
 
Leila Farjami