Woman; Hyena; Coyote; Tigress
A Poem by Rosa Jamali
Translated from original Persian into English by the Author


You see the chains and snakes which has grown over my shoulders?
And you've seen the eagles' nest in my two blinded eyes?
And pigeons' nesting like a crown over my head?
And you've seen crows sitting on emeralds and diamonds of my body
And you are watching this marble throne that's melting in crimson gold
And that precious stone that has penetrated into my eyes to twenty one meters and shaped your eye pupils
And you have seen that on the cliffs, I have breastfed the skinny lambs of the forgotten burnt city in a borrowed land and a city which used to have four ancient gates
And I have made love with all naked scavengers, have you seen that?
And with all my life passion I have slept with coyotes, have you seen this?
And you saw me kissing their sharp claws with a clumsy bow
And I've turned into a woman, a hyena, a coyote and a tiger

My hollow body
Which has been filled all with hay and straw and foils…

Had you seen the burnt wind houses and tea gardens and saffron blossoms inside the nest of my breasts
How about snakes which are licking my limbs
I was the compass of this sea at that bronze age
A rose which was hanging on pillars and columns of Alhambra, a plant I had become
That very scorpion that had wrapped my body and had nested inside
The one who had built a house in a tree in a little vault and you had clung into that
Stems of my sky that you have wrapped in me and darkened my day which is plain and black
The fox that was sitting here long in the mud, longing for me, the tigress!
I'm therocks and corals,
Blended in the corals at the bottom of the sea,
Getting worn outinside pebbles and swamps of your body,
The same string that had been sewn to the sky by you, mighty you!

Have you seen the chicory extract mixed with cedar perfume
With wild flowers and grass
Haveyou seen the vultures in my Crimson Gold
They were chewing my eyes while I was sitting on the marble
I'm announcing the time like a woodcutter
Or I wish I could echo the owl clock at midnight

And what has the earth done to me?
And this whole wild green mass
This tigress…