The Neon Widow

roses came from Persia don't you know

One of my oldest friends is from Persia, she always makes me say Persia instead of Iran. Now, she does not seem to care so much, semantics are useless when it comes to tyranny. And no, I don’t mean the mullahs, just that nothing good seems to happen when America interferes in other people’s business. I mean the further you are from a country the more damage you can do.

Before they were exiled by the revolution my e hoa’s father was briefly a pilot for Air Iran, and I had forgotten that when I wrote this poem for her. I think she was on her way to Spain and from the plane she woke up as they were crossing over the mountains of Iran. Underneath her the magic carpet of her country was calling. It also comes from a phone conversation we had about not wanting to end up being alone. But the truth is I love being alone.

The Neon Widow Wakes Over Persia

She says she always sees the Greek widows

and I wonder if a flock of Ravens is a Sorrow or a Murder

She was watching one of the women and her shopping trolley

designed to keep her step company with the whine

of pathos over the asphalt, worse she saw her

turn into the driveway past his car

covered by tarpaulin like a corpse, she says

her own grandmother died a year after her

husband, once there were softer times, with pyres

though she thinks they are still living

not in the everywhere of puffy clouds or the fear

threatening to swallow her into the lonely

of those women, but in the way she knows

they are still in the air and under her skin

In lieu of sight and touch there are these small comforts

The Shah was no saint, he made himself emperor with a decadent crown and his downfall was partly because of this massive, excessive party held in Persepolis in 1971 which cost millions and where world leaders lived in an elaborate tent city for three days and feasted on the spoils of an out of touch king. Imelda Marcos was the first received guest. I hear she was fond of shoes.