You stack his limbs, like kindling, on an eggshell mattress

study his mottled skin. Yellow and bruised

as though bitten by late blight. Hanging

each breath’s a little dust-cloud

                        his halo

settles into sediment, raining

spittle flecks on starchy sheets. You peel them back

like paperbark

and find him buried underneath —
a lumpy tuber,

skin full of solanine,

hidden from the sun too long, until even bone and gristle’s

gone soft, spine folding back

into a fetal form: waning

crescent moon, a sickle,

something perennial, nested,

wrinkling, and almost ready to rot.
He lays in the darkness,

you stand under pearl-light, holding

his marble palms, the colour of a storm cloud. Asking them

do these fingers miss burrowing,

like earthworms, in the dirt?

do they remember pressing palm-to-palm,

to pray?

palm-to-phallus,

to please?

do they remember how to pinch,

ripe cherries, from spring-green bows?

were they ever painted,

rose-red, in protest?

or were they already tawny and congealed?
You wash his limbs and bruises,

his hypha, every fold,

nail bed, axilla, callous, bristles, lenticels,

his flaccid penis, anus, navel. Tenderly,

thinking of the Persian word for potato —
You are a candle burning

in the oppressive arms of a man

woman —

            perfectly imperfect, baring fuzzy flesh,

            caesarean scar, your eyes

            lapis lazuli

            bathing milk-tears

woman —

            you bellow

            in the language of the birds,

            even your resistance is poetry

woman —

            you cut your hair

            tie it around a wax-waist,

            your flame burns

            brighter from a shorter wick

            and this man becomes your shadow.
Tying stone-things to your lily-white feet

to walk upon roiling waters.

Sticking blood-things over the black-eyed CCTV beast

Humbaba, hah hah hah!

he’s blinded in his own cedar forest.

Burning fire-things to purify this city,

white-ash and lime mortar

veiling lid and temple.
You bury the soft bones of your lover, oppressor,

brother, your father and your son;

and from the grave of a potato

new life grows. 



 ‘Rose-red’ is in reference to the poem ‘Red Rose’ by Forough Farrokhzad, translated by Sholeh Wolpe.

The line ‘Rose, red like a flag/–a revolution.’ ↩
 Line from the poem ‘Wind-Up Doll’ in Sin: Selected Poems of Farrokhzad, translated by Sholeh Wolpe. ↩