Once,
she held me
in her rippling arms,
soft Mother,
breathing her buoyant,
murmuring life
into my little body.
Her shores stretched
like dark fields of wheat.
When I was nine,
she almost drowned me.
After the revolution,
I was banned from entering
unless
Fully Clothed.
The IRI’s uniformed men
parted her with a thick black curtain
that ran a hundred meters long:
a women’s area
bordered by Sharia law.
I remember her
yielding bed,
tangling kelp stalks,
brine, filling my mouth
the night
I said goodbye
before leaving for America,
as she swept refugee bodies
to her shoreline—
a sea of cold eulogy
and stone.
Hard years have turned her into
an infinite liquid shroud—
her hunched spines, Russian-seized limbs,
fuel-drilled organs,
womb of toxic goo.
Will she ever remember
her name?
Leila Farjami is a poet, literary translator, and psychotherapist. In addition to publishing seven poetry books in Persian, her work has appeared in Hey, I’m Alive, Nimrod Journal, Poetry Porch, and Saint Ann’s Review; was published by Tupelo Press for their 30/30 Project; and has been translated into Swedish, Arabic, Turkish, and French. Leila has appeared in poetry readings and on Persian TV and radio interviews about her poetry. She studies poetry with Rachel Kann, enjoys translating sacred poetry by Rumi into English, and has translated a comprehensive volume of Sylvia Plath’s poetry into Persian.
Sara Rubin is a clay artist who, as the founder of a family business, designs and makes glazed, high-fired art pieces, and sells at craft festivals and shops throughout the country. This is her debut art publication.