You blew the dust off the old Leica

​

Gently, you cracked open the
mahogany case, snap, your blue eyes mindful
of the click-sound that lingered in the air as
you took out the camera holding it as if it were
a fragile little bird

​

And then you blew

​

Scattered
splashed dust
fears, worries, doubts
Poooffff

​

Last picture taken
in 1984, just before
missiles attacked Tehran and
I turned seven in a basement shelter where
a camera was the last thing harried grownups
would care to pack

​

You blew the dust off the lens

​

Flying dust, unimportant
silly even - you must have thought-not
seeing the sharpness of images it sketched in
my mind, nor hearing the sound of
martial anthems and birthday songs blending as
I blew seven candles on a birthday cake
Poooffff
The frenzy of lies and secrets and fears and
pictures we took dancing, snapshots of
life going on in hushed tones behind
shut curtains

​

Translating them an impossible betrayal
insufferable
- immoral even

​

I put the empty case back in the suitcase that bears
the weight of years bygone
the smell of jasmine and cardamom and
dusty Octobers and grandma’s
prayer-beads and the voice of wandering
violinists in the quiet of

​

August nights by my bedroom window when
music was no longer banned and
I was the girl who wrote poems and made love to
the splendor of calligraphied words marching right
to left

​

The warmth of
pictures untaken, a home
lost
all boxed in a mahogany case I hid all these years
in a suitcase

​

Until now

​

You blew the dust off the old Leica

​

Look ahead! Your blue eyes brighten as I peak
through the lens inviting
stories of a thousand and one journeys
untaken

​

Framed in rays of sun I can
see with one eye shut the thin
laughter line along your eyelid
almost invisible, there
for a fraction of a second

​