Woman; Hyena; She Wolf; Tigress Poem by Rosa Jamali

Woman; Hyena; She Wolf; Tigress
A Poem by Rosa Jamali
Translated from original Persian into English by the Author

Did you see the chains and snakes which have grown over my shoulders?
Did you see the eagles' nest in my two dark blind eyes?
Did you see that the pigeons were nesting like a crown over my head?
And the crows were sitting on emeralds and diamonds of my body, did you see them?
And this marble throne molten in my crimson gold, you've seen that!
And that precious gem pierced my eyes twenty-one meters through your tiny eye pupils; you did see that?
And you saw on this very stone
I've breast-fed the skinny lambs of the burnt city in a land swap; a city which used to have four gates!
And with all my life passion I have slept with wolves, have you seen that?
And you see me kissing their sharp claws with a clumsy bow
And I've entirely been transformed into a woman-hyena- she wolf-tigress

My hollow body
Which has been stuffed with ornaments
Things like straw and foil and paper!

Did you see the burnt windshields and tea garden and saffron blossoms inside the nest of my breasts?
How about snakes which are licking my limbs?
I was the compass of this sea at that Bronze Age
A rose which is hanging on the pillars of Alhambra, a rose that grew like me!

Transformed to that very scorpion which's spinning its webs and nesting inside my body
The one that has built a house on tree tops and in my cubic shape
And you had been clasping into the branches of my sky
That you had been whirling in me
And you have covered my day which is plain and dark
The fox which is trapped waiting for the tigress who I am
I'm the same cliff cleaved to the coral reef; deep in the sea
Rotted in the pebbles and lagoons of your body
I'm the same rope that you've stitched to the sky

Did you see how the chicory's extract blended with Cedar's essence?
Did you see wild grass and self-growing weeds?
Did you see the scavengers in my Crimson gold?
That they chewed my eyes when I sat on that marble
And I told the time like a woodcutter
Or I wish I could echo the owl clock at midnight

And what has the earth done to me?
And this whole wild green mass
This tigress...