Tehran

In this place,
poetry looms everywhere,
spilling off the tongues of taxi drivers and street hawkers
like the blood of a pomegranate.

Hafez and Khayyam flavour each breath
With the pungent fragrance of ‘hu’
– and when everything is sacred,
there is no more profane.

Even this chador,
a billowing tent of black that follows me everywhere,
like darkness clings to light,
encompasses me with the familiar rain of your embrace.

This evening, in the presence of the Friend
I shall speak your name.