زمین مست کرده است – شعری از مجید نفیسی

The Earth Has Become Drunk

By Majid Naficy

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake

The earth has become drunk

And slams the doors.

There’s the sound of falling dishes

And red horses’ neigh,

And in the dark

I am looking for a piece of my sleep.

Will I put Nooshin’s frame

Back on the mantel,

To remember the hills of Evin?*

Will I hear again

My clanging printer?

And will I talk to my laptop?

Will Azad ride his bike again?

And will I put on my skates?

Will my books return to their shelves?

And will the blinds be pulled up again?

I hear the sounds outside

From within my mother’s womb.

I grab onto the darkness

Dangling from a white umbilical cord.

There’s the sound of car alarms.

The Tibetan neighbor is praying.

And the Mexican girls,

Clutching the skirt of the door,

Are yelling, “Mami! Mami!”

I want to come back

On the night of my funeral,

Like Tom Sawyer.

I will hide under the bed

To hear what people say

And will see my corpse dangling

Beneath the loose planks of the door.

I want to escape from my grave.

I stand in the doorway,

And the earth is calling me inside her.

January 17, 1994

*- While in Evin prison, my sister Nooshin embroidered a cloth depicting the hills of Evin where many executions have taken place in Tehran.