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silence is a type of language
that’s a stolen line
will you forgive me?
reading the blind owl
by the iranian kafka.
there’s wine and opium
and symbols about the
achaemenid dynesties,
morning glories,
bruised lotus flowers.
sifting through the lines
searching for a glitter of gold,
the dense mud of surrealist
meaning, making it difficult.
a pellucid glaze,
purple and green
like a greenbottle housefly-
that’s a nugget. hold on to it.
books satisfy many needs
perplexion just as valid as the next.  

my only fear
is that i might die tomorrow
and still not know myself.
grateful that even in my own
garbled manner, i can still hear the
words in farsi, like whispered echos
and my grandmother’s stale breath
and she recounted fairy tales of
rostam and sohrab as she rubbed
my frail back under the covers
coaxing me to sleep. her entire life
a few fading polaroids in the mind

and if now i have decided to write,
it is only to introduce myself
to my shadow.
who can tell
what we steal
what is ours
and what is simply us
through the delicate transfusion
of language. culture. history.