A Persian Ripple
My father sipped his tea, picked up a single
dried green raisin from the tray,
and I watched his bifocals glisten;
his eyes blurred behind his lenses.
A dried green raisin in the tray,
the ideal place to share some words.
His eyes blurred behind his lenses.
Our eyes never need to meet,
the ideal way to share some words.
He spoke to the wooden table between us,
our eyes never met.
The table bounced his words to me.
He spoke to the wooden table between us,
he told me about the students
and the table bounced his words to me.
He told me they jabbed air with slogans.
He had told me about the students before,
they learned their slogans from a fist
so he told me they jabbed the air with them
months before Iran’s king flew to Egypt.
They learned their slogans from a fist,
he said again, months before you were born,
months before Iran’s king flew to Egypt.
Then they joined another direction,
he said again, months before you were born,
where marchers met the sea.
Then they joined another direction,
they crossed their nationalities
where marchers meet the sea
and catapulted themselves into “heaven.”
We crossed our nationalities
with a one-way ticket into America
and catapulted ourselves into “heaven.”
Did students break sticks to understand wood?
With a one-way ticket into America
we forgot that hell depends on heaven for endorsement.
Did students break sticks to understand wood?
Someone drank tea as the march tamed our grass.
We forgot that hell depends on heaven for endorsement.
Wind spun our echoes, defined days
as someone drank tea while the march tamed us
inside cement and brick buildings—lulled cities.
Breath spun our echoes, defined minutes
as my father left for another glass of tea
inside a cement and brick building—lulled me.
I heard him speak to the kitchen counter
after he left for another glass of tea,
inaudible words that demand tone for understanding.
I still hear him speak to kitchen counters.
The table got quiet and still,
inaudible words demand tone for understanding,
so I continued to throw my own words at it.
The table remained quiet and still;
the dried raisins: still dried raisins,
so I started to throw my own words at them:
We feed somewhere between commercials and headlines.
The dried raisins: still dried raisins.
My father, walking back, continued to speak to the floor.
We feed somewhere between commercials and headlines
was my repeated attempt at a conversation with green raisins.
My father continued to speak to the floor
until he reached our wooden table
and my repeated attempts at a conversation with green raisins.
Who will come home is in the mail, he said.
He had reached our wooden table
and I watched his bifocals glisten.
Who will go back is in the mail, he said.
My father sipped his tea with a single dried raisin.
After
An old woman had a conversation with the ground,
but it wasn’t her voice that spoke to it;
she faced the ground as if that was her labor.
There was no other to walk for her;
age brought her down and age kept her
there. I imagine knowing pain
in that position. Her body had become
a two-legged table that could not fold
beyond a right angle. Draped in blue plaid
she ignored her cane; she carried
a plastic bag of herbs. Every time
her eyes glanced at the scanty bag
she shoved the air that much harder,
shouldered illimitability that much faster.
Ahead, two donkeys grazed in purple flowers
where the mountains hold her people.
Abandoned Tehran
Father carried
two fig roots to the yard
where grass, yellowed, broke.
Mother wondered
if fruit tasted the same
because water had changed.
Nima Kian was born in Tehran, Iran, but left the country during the early years of the Iran-Iraq War. He spent his childhood in Germany where he witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union, after which he immigrated to Los Angeles just in time for the L.A. Riots. A resident of L.A. Nima worked in the Entertainment Industry for nearly a decade before deciding to pursue graduate degrees. He currently resides in Lincoln, NE where he attends UNL as a PhD candidate in Poetry with specializations in Film Theory and Nineteenth Century Studies, focusing on Iranian representation in the western literature of that century.