South
An old cemetery
Of Jews and Communists
Eternally in sleep
Communists and Jews
Baha’is nearby too.

An inferno of gas and fire
Flaming into an evening sky.

The atmosphere smells gas, oil, and death.
Clouds mingling with smokes
And the sprinkle of rain
Landing from the belly of the blue.

Heat, rain, gas, fire, smoke, and the music of stones
Sliding down the tummy of the camion
The camion
The holy book
And the soldiers of God

Stones piling, tones of it

Digging a hole
Soldiers of God
Sweating and cursing

When they brought her in
A moon of beauty
Exploded into the evening of fear.

Slender and serene
Tall and trim
Gilded hair
And eyes of flare
Shimmering into the evening of fear.

The soldiers of God
Stopped
Glanced and gasped
Their hearts;
Filled with temper and temptation
Their mouth
Loosing saliva
Dribble dangling and dropping
Like a dog
In the presence of meat.

People
Gathered to watch a soccer match
Left
A boy of ten or so stayed
Half bared boy
Selling iced-water
Amazed
By the splendor of the woman
And the spitting men of God.

A dog showed up
From no where
An anemic, tall and hungry dog
Showed up
From no where
Stopped nearby
And looked miserably into the crowed
A famished dog
Looks as if had no one to care for her
For a long time
A white
Or so it used to be a white Turkish dog
Not a pet
But a friend.

A sensation of gild and a temptation of rape
Set motion into the hearts
Of the men of God

The earth was so hard
And the hole not yet done
The clouds turning into rain
And the wind suddenly launched
It was an evening of fear
And flung
The stones
Not so big to kill her at once
Not so small to not kill her at all

She was now in the ditch
Because the rain, wind and murk arrived.
The hole wasn’t completely done

And the men of God
And the rain of rocks.

When the weather turned very bad
And the dark arrived
They stoned her and gone
They boy and the dog
Stayed around

They boy and the dog
Pulled her out alive
In the middle of the nigh
The boy and the dog.

May 2002

* Stoning of women is a medieval practice that is still going on in Iran. Women are not equal to men even in death. According to the Islamic law, woman will be put in a ditch up to her chest and then the stoning begins. But, men, if they ever get to be stoned, are put in up to their waist, so there more chance for them to escape death. According to the Islamic laws, if one could get out of the ditch, the justice is done and she/he free to go. During 25 years of stoning in Iran, only one woman managed to escape death.