Notes on the Persian Word for Amber, Kahrobaa

Notes on the Persian Word for Amber, Kahrobaa Sarah Sword Even holding a quarter-sized violin, I knew the real pleasure was in the loose hair brushing the ties ofmy halter top, and past the ties to the small of my back. My hair, always French braided, fishbone braids rods stiff as horse's ribs and forbidden to rundown my back. My hair, hair I knew was as soft as the horsehair on my bow, hair I was forbidden to touch, forbidden to unbraid, forbidden to feel. Days it was washed, days I was put in the sun to dry in a golden halter I learned to tilt my head just slightly, just enough to feel a thousand fingers smoothing the skin of my shoulder blades, the back of my waist, just enough to know the translucent seduction ofhair as the sun dissolved it into amber, 105 106SARAH SWORD whose Persian word is kahrobaa, that which steals hay. I know the sound of amber stealing haymust be the sound of rosin on horsehair, must be the sound ofhair brushing my skin, the sound ofsecrets almost revealed, the slow ache of the stifle joint, the horse's thigh just into a lope. before it stretches Turn, turn my back into an unfretted finger board, the moth-light fingers on the strings, the untangling of ribbons from the mane, the stealing of gold from the horse's mouth. To seduce the insects in a breath how perfect she must be, flecked with wings, ancient and permanent, something that could lift hay from the ground, something that could almost float a fossil resin, skimmed from the intestines ofsperm whales into perfume, like ambergris, the gray amber. Believe me, I want to be as delicate as the white moths, I want to be one of the white moths clustered under the light - NOTES ON THE PERSIAN WOOD FOR AMBER, KAHROBAA107 and doesn't every woman want to be a paper lantern mothed with rice paper, a phalenopsis petal, something worthy ofthe tawny Persian calligraphy? Doesn't every woman long to be the stone whose secret is magnetism long to be the thiefofhay? ...