Mano,s Eyes /by Mahnaz Badihian

 

Mano,s Eyes

To the girls:

In Lahore(and now in Esfahan)

with their faces disfigured ,

 And blinded with acid

………………………. 

 

in Lahore the tick ,hot air

From the roof was dropping

Drop by drop on the dust of her eyes

Grass was laying down

Next to the misery of its thirst

Next to the smell of mastic

And a black wall full of the fossil

Of the sea birds

 

 

A dust covered painting

From a faces of an Indian women

With their hanging breast

And dull long hair

With their eyes filled with blood

 

 

On the black chair

A Persian cat curled up sadly

And the  breez of Moulian River

Hiding under her skin

This is a lost room

With forgotten faces

The curtains in this room

Becomes shorter and longer again

 

 

Where is this place?

I feel my skin is stretching

 

The entire crowd in this room

 Penetrates in my ears

I hear the voices  and cries

 

 

 I knocked my head to the walls

So hard that the bodies of cicadas

Came out of my ears

 

 

A woman who is my neighbor miles

Away from San Quentin

Loves scare crows

And sometimes with a long stick

in the colors red, blue and white

Flies the dead body of

 Scare crows on her roof top

 

 

 Asked my neighbor:

“have you seen the body of the black cat?”

she replies:

“Was it the color of tiger or Coyote?”.

I say the color of Manos,s eyes

After the explosion of the hate!

And voiceless like acidic women

IN the lawless countries

 

 

 I give up on any black cat

That has green eyes.

 ……………………………….

Mano in Urdu is cat