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Clare Crossman

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Zarrin

Clare Crossman reading Zarrin 2828.9 KB
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There was nothing she liked better than
her Ossie Clark dress; deep blue crepe
with a red satin sash and a neckline
feathered with hand sewn overlapping leaves,
perfect for parties, dances and walking
the marbled terraces of perfumed Iranian nights.

‘I come from dynasties,’ she said.
‘A scholarship of planets and the moon,
an astrology of arches and diagonals,
where in mosaic and long reliefs we
celebrate all birds and flowers and
catch the world in miniatures.’

When she left she gave me the dress.
It rustled lilac on its hanger, shimmered
with her stories; the histories of Caliphs
and silk routes, her love of the city
where her Father made chairs from
cedar wood and traded them with China.

And I wanted to travel, to see
the clustered towns she talked about.
The domed and crenulated roofs held
within round walls, cool stone that kept
the air and shadow out of pounding sun,
enclosing sheltering courtyards with
fountains inscribed with birds of paradise.

She did not say where she was going,
and I wondered if she stayed,
unable to let go of her collection of blue glass.
Perhaps she lives in Paris now with others,
always halfway homeward in her mind,
or has returned to be beside an ancient river
where all the stars were cradled,
and walks the broken corridors of Persepolis,
with her certain knowledge of the decorative arts,
her head covered, her face still intelligent and wild.

 

Poems for this issue were selected by Katherine Gallagher

Page(s) 50

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