Translation by Nick Laird

English version by Nick Laird,
based on literal translations from the Persian by the author
and by Narguess Farzad

1

I’m looking for the man who
used to burn inside my shirt.

At the precipice of each lip
I’m trying to find the voice I once
dangled from a cigarette.

At the turn of the card
I am asking after all the revelation
that swept away the birds and plants
the clouds

Lord, carry off this dandelion
to my mother’s laden table.
Take it to my father’s house.

Take it to the river where the fish
fall in love three times a day
three times a day they kill themselves.

Hey!

I’m six years old
and came to buy bread.

What am I doing here?

Hey!

Carry my soul to the palm reader.
Take it to be finger-printed.

You will see I never left the street
that bears the missile’s name.

You will see I only came to buy some rolls of bread.

You will see I am – exactly – six years old.

2

Before the next man joined me
the morning finished gorging on
his head
and like a folding here
in the poem
the man was thrown and caught
within me

Hey!

This much wind can’t fit inside my shirt.

Hey!

This much cloud can’t be allowed to land.

Shrapnel of the blackened body
coming back to eat at you, to
snack on you, to feast.

Why should I be the dust of god, kicked up?

I flow like ink from the pens of his fingers.

Th e broken lighters of his feet
flicker-flare in mine

but his heart is spent, a wet cigarette,
and in his pockets worms digest
his mother’s lashes,
the eyelids of his wife,
fistfuls of his sister’s hair.

I wish someone had once told him
how the moon will not burn
in John Lewis clothing.

Th is one runs from me as he ran
from his mother’s table,

and I would like to tell him of
the metamorphosis
the earth
causes in the lips of poets,

how it decomposes.

3

Even the river escaped me.

Even the doves took flight.

The Judas trees inside me

are made up of the debris.

How was your face made up?

What shade was your headscarf?

Black with soot in my black suit

I hold a dandelion in one hand

but remember no address.

Dust descending on a moth’s wings,

dust descending on the petals:

I have forgotten everything.