Poetry

Borders

You learn to cross borders with two red passports
when one gets an angry goodbye stamped on its last page
and the other scanned—
with a resentful pause—.
on the first page,
why I stayed for three months in the Middle East?
I don't know sir, but it was this urge to vanish
in a sun-warmed mountain whose rigid peaks
sharpen memories of a home
lost on the way from Tehran to Sheffield,
I am a good-enough-citizen, but it doesn't matter,
insecure griefs cross unnoticed by the immigration officer,

You learn to cross from one alphabet to
another when you misread signs in a land
so solid you can't imagine, you run out of oxygen, 
your mouth swallows sand 
in each aphasic leap to open a crack,
in each nocturnal move to reach there,
the tip of your tongue gets warm, it's still warm
like a newly rejected organ in a disloyal body,
it's a part of the malady they might say,
but it doesn't matter, you will understand
home and dignity don't cross hand in hand. 

I suppose crossing from one home to another
means unzipping the same oceans, inhabiting the same frame
hearing the same mispronunciation of your name
veering the city in the direction of the same mother
tasting the same rain that blurs the Art tower,
unpacking the same suitcase, watering half-dead plants,
stroking pillows and leaving the rest to the same dreams
that shift the borders between my eyes and your hands,

If you could tell me about the moments I missed,
about different buildings and trees
about the songs that I could put on repeat,
about the souvenirs of your trip,
perhaps I could tell you about my fear
of losing people, things, that don't even belong to me,
I know you never will but I wish you did
because crossing needs a bit of seduction,
a bit of deviation, it needs a bit of self-deception
to cross the saddest roads that leads to everything ,
to everything.....like the wrong intention
that stabs the centre, but it doesn't matter, 
one can stay numb and conscious at the same time
in the in-between.

Shirin Teifouri