Lanat Abad / The Place of the Damned Poem by Solmaz Sharif

this mangy plot where


by now
only mothers still come,

only mothers guard the nameless plots



•





and then sparingly




•




Peepholes burnt through the metal doors

of their solitary cells,



•


just large enough
for three fingers to curl out
for a lemon to pass through
for an ear to be held against
for one eye then the other
to regard the hallway
to regard the cell and inmate

•



peepholes without a lens

so when the guard comes to inspect me,
I inspect him.


Touch me, he said.


•




And through that opening



I did.