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he was a bit
of a shepherd
to the weird
and lonely—
my dad was,

such is the way
of the elders
in a diaspora,
but he was only
thirty seven
and a bit too distracted
to tend to his own flock,

but they gravitated
to our house
like errant space debris
pulled into his orbit,
on friday nights,
they emptied
bottles of vodka
with mast-o khiar,
red wine,
maybe a few tightly
rolled joints,
maybe more
after i slept.
 
they stayed up late
these young lost persians,
debating the virtues
of communism,
or the role of the cia
in sabotaging iran
and dispelling us all
into this heartless
capitalist pit.
on any given night
pink floyd might be
the soundtrack of choice,
or revolutionary john lennon,
but the night inevitably  
became mired in  
dariush eghbali:
        i am of the plagued eastern tribe
        you are of the glass clear city in the west
        my skin is the material of night,
        your skin is red velvet.
        my body is full of blisters,
        your skin is of tiger skin.

how many years
could they avoid
their self-pity?
to what solution(s)
might they be headed?

one year, one
of them
disappeared
for awhile
and returned
hairless.

i was told
the stress
was too much
for him to cope with
and all of his hair
had fallen out:
scalp, arms, eyebrows, lashes,
beard, whiskers, all of it.

i dared not ask
what kind of stress
would do that to a man,
but from that day
forward i knew
that i would
not be a sheep
in need of a shepherd.
i would never be the
kind of immigrant
that would
let america
do that to me.

in farsi
zendan means prison
and zende means alive,
zendegi means life
and zendooni means prisoner.
what chance do any of us have?