The Male History 

You, Mr. Days,
your residency card
and work permit
will do me no good. 
my nostalgia
is as vast as your patriarchy,
its gray streets
make me dizzy
just like alleys void of the memory
of this exile-place. 
your chronometer constantly shatters
the mirror of my wishes
and dumps it right before my feet,
you don't know how incisive the dagger of their gaze is
specially when it prods my treading feet
and asks:
what happened?!
what can I say….
what can I say not to hurt the either ends of tradition
and modernity! 
In fact, where should I stand
in order not to offend your splendid culture and civilization? 
I have lost my grandmother's rosewater rosary
somewhere next to this microwave
due to the lack of focus
and my exam
-the medical board exam-
I have been very busy. 
The tale-spinning "Shahrzad"
and the "enchanting Genie" will do me no good
Actually, I don't believe in either of them. 
My moments get sublimated in the laboratory of my daily experiments
with thousands of "shoulds" and "maybes"
the forehead of your turberculous disasters
is very hot. 
Tell your male history
that its green income
befits its own wallet,
my credit card is filled with my intellectual substance; 
I don't need a necklace of jasmine flowers
or an emerald bracelet 
I don't have any tears to shed
you can rest assured;
because of fear of revocation
my poetry's thousand-year suppressed cry
has reached the ultimate self-censor. 
Tell the male history  to come and take over this kitchen for an hour,
the anti-war protests are in,
I have got to go. 
 

Translated from Farsi by Leila Farjami