The Story of a Love: A Sequence of Twelve Poems

Narcissus:

My love has a narcissus
In her mouth,
Carried with her
From prisons in Iran.
I know that from behind bars
One can see the image of a flower
In the face of the moon,
And in the morning
One can hear the migrating cranes
In the blue sky.
I know that behind eyelids
And in a fist
And between each execution
And in the void of the last letters
And the whispering knocks on the wall
And the dewy fringes of sorrow
And the naked hems of joy
And the empty holes of pain
And the twilight of hope
And the hidden summit of pride
One can.
Yes, one can hide Spring.
And yet, I wonder in those dark cells
How one can grow a narcissus
So white,
Without any stain of blood.
July 15, 1995