Mountain Sonnet to Zal
Tell me your name
so I can write it in the blank lines between stars
or trace it on the cracked ground where roots wound
up from the flagstone vaults
whose grazings read a story of your stories,
sediments that thread back to your body
mapping a geography of you:
an angel in free fall or a Boeing
737 picking a landing in the Alborz mouth, the fumes
curling above the dormant ridge of Damavand
letters in cursive addressed to your broken heart
for a what was a could have been
before the phoenix curdled from the plumes
to pluck an immigrant feather from her crown.
Arman Kazemi is a writer and arts organizer based in Vancouver, Canada. His poetry has appeared in Canadian and US-based journals such as PRISM International and Inverted Syntax, while other writing has been featured in the Globe and Mail, CBC, the Georgia Straight. Arman's writing focuses on immigrant identity in the context of his Iranian-Canadian settler identity, tracing personal history through the lens of collective myth. He is also a co-founder of MENA Film Festival which he has co-directed since 2019. A forthcoming collection is in the works with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.
