Pratik : HIGHLIGHT: Iranian American poet Sholeh Wolpé's "Unblinking Eyes" from Pratik's Special LA issue

Sunday, September 26, 2021

HIGHLIGHT: Iranian American poet Sholeh Wolpé's "Unblinking Eyes" from Pratik's Special LA issue

Sholeh Wolpé

Unblinking Eyes

…and I thought, perhaps daddy was right.

At nine I imagined the dots

on our pet fish

as unblinking eyes, dark holes

that took in our distorted faces

through the sky of her plastic tank.

My brother’s fingers made waves

in her world, sent her scurrying

behind the plastic grass, the way his pounding

kicks on my bolted door sent me hiding

behind my rickety bookshelf, twirling

long strands of my wild hair

as I froze behind three rows

of storybooks and Persian poetry.

Every year, daddy replaced the hole-ridden

bedroom door, until one day he didn’t—

as punishment he said, because:

What do you do daughter to incite him so? Share!

I began to conceal the kick marks and dents:

Magazine faces thick with makeup,

curvaceous bodies in short skirts holding up

a box of detergent, a tube of toothpaste,

their impeccable orthodontic smiles…

and I thought, perhaps daddy was right—

my brother was always after something:

the marble I found and claimed, the bowl

of cherries I sequestered, or those records

I played on my red turntable, refusing

to share that corner

of joy carved from air,

mine alone. Then, now. Last night,

at mother’s house, after a meal

of lamb smothered in saffron sauce, potatoes

fried to a crisp, rice slippery with butter,

my brother wanted again. He kicked

with his words, called me whore

because I live with a man out of wedlock.

What is he after now? Abroo?

That untranslatable un-wrinkling of honor,

“water on the face” that blurs sins

the way our courtyard pond hid its algae,

imagining itself the nocturnal rocking chair for the moon?

Or is my beloved brother

(and believe me, he is beloved)

after something I can never fathom,

universally virile— something

perhaps only a fish with a hundred

unblinking eyes may see?

Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian-born poet and playwright. A recipient of Mid-West Book Award, and PEN/Heim, her literary work includes several plays as well as 12 books of translations, anthologies, and poetry, including Keeping Time with Blue Hyacinths, and The Conference of the Birds.

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