The Arrow
The arrow is short and feeble
yet it bores through the skin, the chest flesh, the rib bones,
it bores through the infinitude of breaths.
The black vacuum of lungs bleeds.
I watch the arrow pierce through the other side
not her posterior,
but the facade of all things cast on our lids.
Holed faces hang by the thread of light
sewing their foreheads through each niche:
constellations born
by mere coincidence.
Water
My name is water.
I am an entity of waves, foams, currents,
and hums.
I open my mouth to devour lands
I eat fish, human, and air
I dissolve your traces of shame,
I swallow your animal stain.
My name is water,
I dwell on dirt,
cleanse a life not my own
with dutiful hands.
The Paraplegic
My pain is a paraplegic.
Unyielding extremities.
Only the tongue sways here and there
to formulate a few sour words,
aimless
it can not conquer the pebbles of Hour.
I embrace this impoverished child
I give her all the names I recall from battles with death-arrows of time,
like a vigilant mother
I nurse her inside my arms,
I offer her the water of life,
the blanket of grass,
I teach her first words,
mumble dreams of her future,
and release her feet
from old shackles of stone.
-Leila Farjami
