for Erin Soros
in dreams our house is no longer black. I’ve pushed past the smog halo frowning down the horizon line. I can finally see the sky Nile blue as promised in kindergarten. in dreams the highway doesn’t cherry the thin lace curtains with soot, it takes an entire family to seed a single pomegranate painstakingly slow, methodical and we’re friends with salamanders. we chase them through the garden in friendship: through Orange groves, through Cherry trees. in dreams we can afford nature and Dad’s always driving, hairy hands on the steering wheel. I grow up on the back seat, watching tea farms and wind turbines. in dreams we’re always in the car: on the road, stuck in traffic, eating takeout and Dad finally mentions Grandpa without crying. I hide behind a pillar, lean onto chalk carvings of fleur de lis. tears will flow however slow however strong. if I dream for long enough we’re leaving again waiting for airport taxis, sorting out our visas and grandma smokes Isfand, wearing black since grandpa died. if I dream long enough tears aren’t meant for the grave but meant for the tyranny of geographies. if I dream long enough the streets are filled with stray cats again, licking themselves under mulberry trees. if I dream long enough culture becomes ancient, becomes something manifest only in dreams. if I dream long enough I’ll miss the exhaustion, the traffic, the cruelty of passersby suffocated in the ever present smog. cars honk behind every closed door, motorcycles roar louder than each and every thought. colors disappear black, grey, black grey all over again. grandma’s pond water: muddied it no longer reflects turquoise. I hear an accordion player pass through back alleys, some say for a buck, I say for coloring our afternoons turquoise again. I don’t remember grandpa’s face for a moment and my heart stops. Dad doesn’t understand my poems, asks me how much Hafiz I’ve read and I decide not to dream anymore. I step out into the city, into the cold. buy turquoise rings, turquoise hats, turquoise clothes, color my life my way. no more dwelling, no more Farsi, just memories, memories, memories muddier than grandma’s pond as if it never existed. memories of culture we never held in hand or held onto till gone and forgotten words that never left the larynx till its correct spelling became uncle’s pointed finger through phones, laptops, tablets and distance brought clarity to our character: presence at the edge of identity was an absence of dreams dreams, dreams in which I sketch back alleys and plastic soccer balls, double layered sketch on the class chalkboard my calculus teacher’s every insecurity take bites from classmate’s sandwiches, give away a bite of my own and thaw into toronto, montreal, Vancouver: thaw into train windows that shows turquoise once every 24th frame.
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Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi (He/They) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They are the winner of the Vallum Poetry Prize 2021 and author of four poetry Chapbooks. Their debut poetry collection Me, You, Then Snow is out with Gordon Hill Press. You can find Kess online, on Instagram and Twitter @DearKestrel.