A City in Fire

(a memoir of war)

 

The morning evokes the sound of bullet-showers

and the wet taste of sulfur from the burnt matches of the night before.

The cardboard bodies of soldiers

march like trained coffins through cemeteries

in orderliness:

left, right

left, right

left, right…

and the sky,

that porous circle,

spills a yellow liquid

over the vigilant walls

before slowly disappearing.

 

On the first day of war.

I take out a pocket calendar

to cross out

all my birthdays.

 

 

        -------Leila Farjami

 

 

Leila Farjami was born in Tehran, Iran. She immigrated to the United States with her family during the infamous and gruesome Iran-Iraq war. Her first book of poetry named “Seven Seas, One Dew Drop” was published in Iran in 2001 by Roozgar publications. Her second volume of Persian poetry titled "the confession letters" is currently under publication. 

 

 

<-- PREVIOUS                                NEXT-->

content © - Leila Farjami
Music: © - H P Chourasia
image Source -  www.uusc.org/darfur/photoessay2004_2.html