Rooftops of Tehran

Contents

7 Contents Rooftop Rooftop ~ 15 I Was Sung into This World ~ 16 View from Above The Cross-Eyed Girl ~ 21 The Attack of the Crows ~ 22 Rain, Rain All Week ~ 23 Surgeons ~ 24 Orphanage in Shiraz ~ 25 Tehran Treats ~ 26 Knowing the Food on the Table ~ 27 She Forgot ~ 28 Home ~ 30 Rooftops of Tehran ~ 31 Confined ~ 32 Longing ~ 33 Shimran Café Adventure ~ 34 Middle Eastern Eyebrows ~ 36 Sweet Sixteen ~ 37 Secrets ~ 38 Shame ~ 39 Villages of the Unseen ~ 40 Religious Education ~ 41 The Village Well ~ 42 By the Caspian Sea ~ 43 Suicidal Stars ~ 44 Arrival ~ 45 8 Your Toes ~ 46 Azza, The Ceremony of Grief ~ 47 At Her Father’s Memorial Service ~ 48 The Six-Fingered Man ~ 49 Waiting ~ 50 Awakening ~ 51 View from Above ~ 52 The Tulips of Tehran The Tulips of Tehran ~ 55 Censored Poem ~ 56 Daddy’s Key ~ 57 Telephoning a Poet ~ 58 The Men, Plural ~ 60 Stoning the Prostitute ~ 61 Honor ~ 62 Bam ~ 63 After the Tsunami ~ 64 His Parents“Disappeared” in the Suburbs of Tehran ~ 65 “Endless Love,” Islamic Revolutionary Style ~ 66 Eternal Prayer ~ 67 History Lesson ~ 68 Going Back to Iran ~ 69 No Apple Trees in This Paradise Morning After the U.S. Invasion of Iraq ~ 73 The Wall ~ 74 Step Out ~ 76 9 The Photograph ~ 77 In the End What Folly ~ 78 No Apple Trees in This Paradise ~ 79 And So It Goes . . . ~ 80 Holy Water ~ 81 The Outsider ~ 82 Moral America ~ 83 At Reno Airport ~ 84 Los Angeles, 2007 ~ 86 The Deep Dive ~ 88 Defiance Naked ~ 93 Weed Killer ~ 94 The Appointment ~ 96 Max Ernst’s“A Hundred Thousand Doves” ~ 97 Bees ~ 98 Walking in the Woods ~ 99 That Desire Called Sin ~ 100 If Only We Could Hear Fish Sing ~ 101 Axing the Horses Axing the Horses ~ 105 Vocabulary ~ 109 References and Comments ~ 110 10 This page intentionally left blank. 11 . . . To understand is continually to become, to see what only few can see and see it through the shifting sands of appearance as only you who fly can see. —Farid UD-Din Attar Conference of the Birds Translated by: Raficq Abdullah People are birds unable to fly. —Mahmoud Darwish 12 This page intentionally left blank. ...