Life persisted

Translated by Saba Vasefi

My mouth soaked with shredded flesh,

veins engorged, touched by solitude's salve,

scent imbued with mortality's air.

The jailer,

a stranger to the language of suffering,

failed to fathom the accent of torment.

My unborn cellmate within,

a witness to her mother's passing,

held her dear,

yet, hungered not for her birth.

I etched the noose

on the throat of agony,

where death emerges as the sole path

boundless and borderless.

The coiled terror at my core,

and, as always, I only had myself.

Beneath me, the ground was hollowed 

I was suspended and outcasted. 

Branca's rusted voice

nibbled my vertigo,

as the ambulance conveyed

my asphyxiation to another cell.

Within the mist of suffocation,

reawakened consciousness,

life persisted,

yet imprisoned.

I recognised the nurse by her scent,

injecting solace into my vessel,

before forsaking me

among exuberant rats 

leaping from a pail.

The adjacent chamber,

was lamenting

for the barbecued fate of

a fellow detainee.

His aqueous blisters,

youthful life,

crawled across

death without a visa,

an unsanctioned departure,

amid apathetic gazes.

Long live humankind,

long live democracy,

long live human rights,

not even a chilled towel proffered,

to soothe his scorched body.

Encircled by the ashes of longing,

with one hand, I caressed death's nape.

It was calm and tranquil

but the other hand mirrored the fetus' fingers,

once more, my own flesh held me in check.

I wept

for the memory of my

self-immolated cellmate,

and my newborn girl behind bars.