
The non-profit in which I am employed has a department
called Survivors of Torture. My colleague
in Supply Chain actually applied to transfer there. She
must have had a very different life
than I. She is a quiet woman though,
so I never learned her background. And now
(I am a coward)
I hope I never will.
Begin Again
As I was coming home this evening I noticed my relative,
She stood in thin silence under the jacaranda tree
That is one of many jacarandas in this area.
I mistakenly thought her to be a first cousin on my father’s side
But as I approached and she did not move
I saw she was actually a more distant cousin, though still from my father’s side
She raised her arm in greeting only
I was then close enough to see the knots of hair she could no longer brush out
Or had stopped trying to
Her clothes were unclean as well,
And her feet poorly covered by house slippers.
I wondered if she would beg for lodging, or money, or mercy
She stared at me a long time, her breath moving in shallow waves
Finally she told me she was moving her children away
To a place she heard would not have subpar education and a corrupt governor
And since her children would be properly educated, they would recognize corruption
She did not ask me for anything, instead, she offered me blessings
Though it should have been me offering this to her for her journey
After she left I remained, under the jacaranda tree.
Taliban Dreams
It is incorrect to express this in English yet
My heart is holding Farsi tightly not
Releasing it to my tongue and
Unlike them and their flag, I
Will not be reduced to exclusion, plus
The occupation birthed many interpreters including one
Whom I married. I see
Taliban in my dreams. They are
Holding a rake, an axe, a hoe, while speaking
To Agha Sir Sultan Lt General. He disperses
Farming equipment and seed. His
Back turned, they pick up their
Gun which was there always. My family is
Next to the blue lake, it offers colors
More intense than the Caribbean. Our wedding
Would have been here. In my dreams the Buddhas
Remain deprived of their heads. Do not soothe me and say it
Is only a nightmare. We have knocked on the door of
Other countries. The landscape bristles with limes.
Lisa Sultani earned her MA in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. She now lives deep in America’s Bible Belt. She has carefully guarded her writing until recently, and has a publication in the Delta Poetry Review.
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