Romeo and Juliet of the East
… and then the hungry joggers
sweating on empty stomach
behind the bars
around the fence.
Pavement heaves,
dims with pandemic.
Parc Monceau.
It’s time to dream.
The birds and the trees
look through the gates,
my room, only steps away,
becomes a sanctuary,
Leyli’s room in Arabia!
She’s fallen ill
beside her husband.
Feverish,
“virgin love” for another man.
her would-be lover,
Majnūn (his tribe Banu ‘Amir called him thus)
possessed,
mad!
room swirls, spirals, slides,
sickness spreads,
Leyli’s confined.
Majnūn worships,
his legs take him round and round.
A pilgrimage,
not God, but something real.
His lips
open, close, meet,
move apart, close,
open, gasp for air,
recite, shout, weep.
Leyli’s heat
melts in the walls,
but cannot escape
husband, father,
protectors.
She breathes.
They remove the steaming cloth,
press a fresh one
cool and wet
her skin,
fresh coal
burns, burns,
and burns.
In the evening,
they bury her
in Père-Lachaise.
No investigation,
died of a broken heart
case closed.
Majnūn,
his tongue stuck in his jaw,
begins to sound like a crow.
He may well be a crow,
pecking at the tombstone
(lit from within)
and as his lungs, arms, eyes
keep hardening,
isolated, in the
brute heart of the grave,
he caws.
Mariam Saidan is Iranian/British and has worked in the Human Rights field, studied Public International Law in Tehran, Human Rights Law at University of Nottingham, and Creative Writing at Kent University. Her recent most publication can be found at ‘inksweat&tears’.
very well done. raw and powerful.
“ pecking at the tombstone………..
he caws”
so touching. Keep writing.