Being young will never get old
So forget all those lies that you’ve been
told
Suck in the sun
Then exchange numbers with the
Tulips

Are you able, girl?

That girl wears the clam between her legs
Sticky
She boasts no-underwear
Stretching her liquid limbs to the sky
Of chirping fluorescence
Overhead, she is like a shaky China doll
Of cucumber fingers
So pale and so cold
That you mistook them for ice-cube-kisses beneath
The table
Are you able, girl?
To imagine yourself without a boy
Sucking on your hips with his finger-
tips
He holds on tight, for the ride
It feels so good to be inside
Are you able, girl?

I have gone so far for you
That my spine croaks a sunset tune
Cloud-wisps color my hair white, then blue
And rainstorms stud my lashes with dew

I have gone so far but I still must go
Swallowing tulips, lightning, and fields of snow
Along with hearts of trees and the essence of leaves
Before they murmur to the floor

I have gone so far for you
That my knees and my feet are through
They spit and they screech at you
Their words boil and brown a bloody stew

The cypress trees are tall and blue like you
Their limbs stretch towards the tangerine sun
Together they whisper words I know well
That many moons will give birth before I am done

Sticky summers provide
the usual souvenirs:
Tan, crisp faces
pockets scratchy with sand
and countless heart-biting, igniting images
of boys in bookstores and in buses
stooped over novels with jagged names
lips sparkling with pricks of blood.

These darling invite lavender-pink dreams
to feed the fat vacancies between our thoughts and
tirelessly, we imagine when our paths might crash
arousing love-sparks to gallop free
so we, too, might
leap.

Soon we will experience
the slap-sting of beautiful boys
who feign interest just to prove they can
seduce us into a face-slam
with a pole,
or an ouch-slip into a ditch.
While rubbing our bruises
and brushing off wormy dirt clods,
We will glance at him, suddenly strong, a phoenix born from the ashes of heart-burn

And think:
Did the lumps in our throats betray our careless expressions?

You drive me nuts--
almonds, cashews, pecans
prickly with salt
the Planters Premium kind
that look better than they taste
and lie about the ZERO trans fat
(in the shower, I can no longer count my
toes)
You forced the pecans onto my palms.
I thought they looked like dead
Cockroaches.

My grandmother
wears her hips
clean
like cantaloupes
her breasts droop:
swelling, full-buttomed eggplants.
Her thighs are large, liquid and
smooth. But her fingers are crooked and her knees
breaking.
She leans forward to
ease my grandfather out of his seat,
grapefruit-gut and all.
He distributes
silky, slippery burps
that smell of dinner's stringy
roast beef. Sometimes, my grandmother
embraces a frown. She scoots wrinkles into her forehead
and her eyebrows meet halfway.
A moment.

Then that smile returns.
Sour cheeries.

Maman Joon

Before I left the house Ameneh swiveled in her seat and snapped at me: Maman joon, khaar hastee. Mother dear--you’re an ass. I didn’t say anything and instead left, strangely comforted by my daughter’s use of the adjective “dear.” Somehow it diluted the acidity of “ass.”
The afternoon sun in Yazd is so hot that I often feel the overwhelming urge to vomit. Of course, I do not. But I still envision it every time I catch a shimmering glimpse of the dimpled blacktop.
As usual, the hospital parking lot gushes with cars. I manage to squeeze through without tearing my monteaux on one of the broken headlights, like I did last time. I had no other choice but to endure the rest of the day with pins poking my left thigh. I returned home with a patch of raw, pink skin that oozed blood while I showered.
As I walk down the bright, white hallway I can feel my lunch heave forward in my stomach. Though I remember chewing it into a pulpy mush, the chicken takes shape, evolving into a fat, feathered mass that weighs me down. I suddenly want nothing more than to return home, so that I can turn up the air conditioner and sit on my bed with a cold glass of water wedged between my bare feet.
The patient is only six years old and her chin quivers as she speaks. The overhead lights expose sticky tear-tracks on her cheeks. She reminds me of Ameneh. I adjust my headscarf and push up my sleeves. The small girl attempts a smile but her mouth collapse into a stubborn frown.
Nurses Zahra and Zeevar have situated the young girl on the crisp wax paper. She’s wriggling and writhing like the worms I sometimes pluck with my naked fingers from the circle of hydrangeas Baba joon planted before he passed on. I always accidentally kill the worms and their blood ends up underneath my fingernails.
Now, my fingernails are clean.
The young girl is wailing and her mouth hangs open. I stroke her damp forehead and notice that for a gasping instant she stops crying. Though the moment Zahra and Zeevar pull up her skirt she starts again. I know what it must feel like, being in her position. Too many people assume that doctors only give shots, and that they never receive them. I hate sitting and waiting for the impending sting in your right leg, or the muscle-pinch in your left shoulder. Doctors get shots, too.
Three other nurses agreed to help us. We leave the little girl no choice but to remain very still, still enough so that the needle doesn’t puncture skin that it isn’t supposed to. I glance over at her and notice that in the pale blueness, her face glistening with drying tears, the little girl looks most like Ameneh. The thought drives my heart straight to my stomach where it lingers a moment before sliding down my toes. The needle is too heavy in my hand.
The procedure is finally over. The wax paper crinkles as I fold it into a neat, translucent square. The girl’s face is hidden behind her mother’s head. I imagine that they’re exchanging soft pecks on the cheek. I throw away the trash and turn to leave: My mouth feels dry and I’m craving a long sip of ice water.
My throat feels alive again. I’ve swallowed enough water to sustain the hydrangeas for at least two weeks. Before I walk to my office I notice that the little girl is leaving, with one hand pressed into her mother’s palm and the other flapping at her side. I stare at her. At that moment, she spins around and smiles.
Yesterday I discovered one of Ameneh’s diary entries in the tight space between her bed and her wall:
Maman Joon, there is a picture of us when we were much younger. You were trying to kiss my cheek but I pulled away. And the picture is just a blurry whir in the middle where our faces were supposed to meet.