Quarters

Journal pages empty under midnight moon, flesh awaiting the knife. My head curls into my belly until my spine breaks . . .

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آب را گل نکنیم: Let us not Muddy the Water by Sohrab Sepehri

I am studying Creative Writing at the University of Arizona and, in a nod to my heritage, I am learning Persian as a second language. As part of the department’s end-of-year Persian showcase, my professor invited me to translate a contemporary Iranian poem into English and learn the original poem in Persian.

Because of how timeless the poem is and how poignant its message is even today, I hope you will enjoy this translation of Sohrab Sepehri’s poem آب را گل نکنیم, or Let us not Muddy the Water.

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Still Life with Gaza

It’s day six in Mexico and the coffee jar is empty. We walk down the dusty road to the restaurant as the sun cries in the ocean behind us, the beautiful ocean, seagulls crying . . .

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Blood Moon

He holds the world in his stomach. He holds a pomegranate that he breaks with hands the size of my feet . . .

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Poem Impending

I tied twilight in bunches with rosemary from the rafters. In summer I brewed it between copper and winter . . .

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Pink Hydrangea

Coffee brews thick and foamy today with hints of equinox in the cream. It is a morning to sit and mourn with summer dew as sun sweeps the grass dry and the hydrangea flowers reach for September . . .

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Little Mermaid

I did not ask you to pull me from the water. You wrested me to coastline where sand cut my flesh and the sunrise made my blood scream . . .

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Eye of Demeter

Last night the moon rose electric in the sky. Fingernail sliver of warm yellow streetlight almost swallowed by midnight earth . . .

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Mesquite Ink

Last night the moon rose in an inky sky and I watched the stars blink into being one by one over the expanse of a glittering city . . .

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