Poem by Sholeh Wolpe (Iran/USA)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 38.

  Pickles and Donuts

Cold basements remind me of the dead

fruit my mother smothered in sugar, the phallic

pickles souring in tight lipped jars.

I keep my school uniform stained, my

long hair pulled back tight, my walnut

breasts cloaked with baggy shawls,

tell my friend next door, about the red

jam donut beneath our skirts, teach her

the waist twisting dance of wrapping childhood's

curtain around her body so soon unfolded

like voodoo air from an uncapped perfume bottle.

I breathe in books that turn my eyelashes

to blue feathers, my eyelid’s veins into delicate

wing bones that flap and lift, travel me

to an island house on stilt legs.

She eats the stone pages of an old Quran,

comes of age at dusk where bombs fall

on paved roads and the sky rains scalding

lava that streams and streams, carries her

to the sharp edge of the world.