Mother, O Moon

Tehran, 1979.
You were only 10 years old—
a child, and the moon became exile.
He took you to the market because you wanted
some shoes; held you by the hand,
like any father. The next day,
he was kidnapped.
Your mother’s silence—
pale, like a wall of stone.
Maybe if I hadn’t
he would still be here.
A child’s logic, crystalized by fear.
Your knuckles white with clenching,
afraid that if you ever let go, he’ll vanish—
like a red balloon
swallowed by the sky.
Photographs show me your goblet eyes.
Did you empty them of what you saw?
Nightmares away from where you were.
What is it to flee in the night?
Your name in Farsí: Moonlight.
Did you learn to welcome darkness?
Even now you cling to me
like cloth to the wound.
Conflicted: if you let me go,
I’ll vanish.
Want.
A pair of shoes.
Your heart is an anvil.
I can feel it in the room.
I can feel it: you are desperate to consume
yourself, to mutilate desire.
Deep down, I wish
I had never been born. I only
watched you say this.
I thought: Where would I be?
Turn back the clock, I vanish
like a red balloon.
You wanted a pair of shoes.
But most of all, you wanted everything
to stay where it was—yourself,
your father, your place in my life.
Mother, how am I supposed to leave?
Like tugging out a knife
between your shoulder blades.
You’re all I have.
I watched you say this.
I thought: the moon is exile
in me.