A few of us had sat down
at a café, our hair singed, our
chests crowded with the streets
of Tehran—our skins of daylight
having turned dark here and there.

We were a few horses having
no wings, no manes, no meadows.
We were all about running, and
with casual, soiled horseshoes
would sprint out of the streets’
choked throats.

Trees had turned into truncheons,
and we were so full of tears that
could cry for real amid
all the smoke and fire.

We were about to break
and at last pounded down
on the table the fists we
had been waving in the air.

And we hid our fists under the tables.
And we hid our fists in bed.
And we hid our fists in the kitchen drawer.
And we hid our fists inside our pockets . . .

Open my fist!

Whatever part of Tehran
I place a hand on, it is aching.
Whatever part of the day
I sit on, it is nighttime.
Wherever on the soil . . .
I didn’t have the stomach
to finish my sentence!

This poem was gunned down
in its opening lines or else it
would never have come to an end.

(Translated, from the Persian, by Siavash Saadlou.)