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This poem is taken from PN Review 256, Volume 47 Number 2, November - December 2020.

Red Cities and other poems Maryam Hessavi
Red Cities

I came to this planet earth
with cherries hanging on my ears

and I was not a girl.
I am also that girl.

I followed the path of the horse’s gallop,
by a setar that played without strings

and I was not a musician. I am
also that hand that plays. The man

dropped a coin for my sound.
I am that man. The glint rolled as sound

loaded a horn so loud it banged
and worth was fashioned   well. I am

a bursted eardrum. The ear felt
wind  sigh past. Wind cuts across

the ear. That ear is me.
The ear is a house that rests

on water with stilts that wobble.
Those stilts are me. And that house
...


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