Must I find my body in a book,
a misnomered bruise, borne like a gland
on the wrong side since they made me
cross over and out? When I was a girl,
the lithe babble of warm rain fell
through my skin, herbs from the languorous
green mountains wafted through my pores.
No one made the flowers speak. The sea
was blue, gulls’ flight script I could read.
Now through metal blinds I watch the cold
precipitate particles of light
from the gray – or is it grey? – veil
late solstice afternoon unfurls:
words which do not become me.
***
Nasrin was born on the southern shores of the Caspian. Winters in Alberta were far from her cup of tea. To make matters worse, when I wrote this poem for her, she was suffering from a debilitating virus. “Spleen” to her had always been Baudelairean melancholy, not the gland, the exact location of which required some research, though both meanings certainly applied in that place and at that point in time. She recovered completely and fifteen years later we have found ourselves in lotusland, not where Canadians place it, in Vancouver, but much farther south.
