The Forbidden: Poems from Iran and its Exiles

Parts of a Pedestrian in a Tunnel

9 Parts of a Pedestrian in a Tunnel Rasoul Younan The sky was like an inverted beach with blazing sand. Punctured shoulders kept alive the fear that drilled itself into our bones. Was it morning or evening? We don’t remember. Were we awake or asleep? We don’t remember. It was raining fire and sand, still, we don’t remember anything. We don’t like the police coming to our door. We were four, all of us insane, inside cubic nightmares, and what we wished for was for the sun to rise at midnight . . . We pulled the bloodied sun from the throats of roosters and took to the streets. In the streets they gave us plastic flowers and we foolishly fell in love and betrayed with sincerity. This is how our story became known to all. We desired love without its false trimmings, a world without guns. On dark walls 10 we painted red roses. Passersby laughed at us. Laughed at us, the passersby. All we did was look at them. Roads had knotted themselves around the city. We stayed in the city, decaying and singing: The train that cannot carry us away from here is not a train. We were big boys with small desires. We were the small desires of big boys. And behind the doors and windows the storm that dwelled, then subsided, was the chronicle of our unfulfilled wishes. We were four, all of us insane, and our life was a tragic pedestrian in an obscure tunnel. We were four, all of us insane. Four teardrops the world had shed . . . We walked the streets until dawn. Until dawn, we walked the streets. Yet both the street and the night were endless. 11 We danced in the moonlight— well, we were insane. In the moonlight, we danced. The city whirled around our heads. Suddenly, the police siren halted our simple celebration. We were afraid. We shrank into a corner. Later, the garbage collectors came. They swept us away along with all the dead leaves and night’s leftover garbage. We were four pieces of rubbish— they swept us away. But the city remained full of trash. Translated by Hassan Fayyad ...