Bombs and Stars

When I was a child,
my fire burned black after dark.
What is not seen
can never be put out.

I never asked,
What about me?

I would ponder the smallness of sparrows,
too many of which I found dead or dying in the pond
—floating on its algae-mirror like rufous pads of lily—
their gray bibs hanging open, darkening in water,
their bellies bloated, eyes narrowed and still.

Once, in the backyard, I dug a hole under the willow
buried two of them deep inside wet earth,
packed and shrouded their corpses in white silk,
kissed their clenched wings with reverence, muttered a prayer,
as if sanctifying saints for their next incarnation.

Then, the Tehran winter hit—
the bone-sawing snow, the razing windchill,
the war, the sparrows in my handmade grave,
their feathers turning to shards of ice,
their insides slush. Glassy parasites.
I never asked,
What about them?

For six years, death was everywhere.
I stood under bombs and stars.
Never looked up. Never.
Where would they land?
On your face or mine?

I never asked,
What about us?

Read more from Issue 22.1.