It had a sense of presence,

of solidarity in light’s embrace,

despite the blind-folding, the winding drive,

the tuning-up of crowded Tehran streets

dissonant in cupped glass; then voices only,

interrogation, an art-form of power

where everything fits, as in paranoia;

but nothing was lost on you.

In what was planted or removed that night,

loyalty travelled in a few straight lines

on the crystalline wedlock of light

in the mosaics of dawn in Esfahan,

the only words a faithful man

could bring himself to write.