Five Poems by Rooja Mohassessy
Rooja Mohassessy is an Iranian-born poet and educator. She is a MacDowell Fellow and an MFA graduate of Pacific University, Oregon. Her debut collection When Your Sky Runs Into Mine (Feb 2023) was the winner of the 22nd Annual Elixir Poetry Award. These poems first appeared in When Your Sky Runs Into Mine (Elixir Press, 2023). Her poems and reviews have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Poet Lore, RHINO Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, CALYX Journal, Ninth Letter, Cream City Review, The Adroit Journal, New Letters, The Florida Review, Poetry Northwest, The Pinch, The Rumpus, The Journal, and elsewhere.
The Immigrant and Envy
In the Getty version her legs are crossed,
the gossamer cloth pressed
into her pubis. In an instant she’ll withdraw
her palm and recline onto the sham.
Ribbons of gold shimmy about like wild fringes
on a flapper girl. In Rembrandt’s version a putto
vibrates by the bedpost, the velvet canopy sagging
in excess like the amazon-green drapes
Miss O’Hara fashioned into a dress.
The brazen subterranean tower ablaze,
O so blinding.
*
I only understood Scarlett
two thirds in when she got down digging
for frozen roots, the grit of war
caked into her nails, her faded affairs
and frilly gowns trailing like bait
from page to page. I skimmed the Civil War
for dragging endlessly like exhortations
of the Mullahs back home, but I strained
over Rembrandt’s Danaë. I understood God,
dry light at Asr prayer pouring
onto my janamaz. I understood shavings of the sun,
the forked sword of the prophet sharpened
on the great ingot of gold,
sparks shooting vigilant, but I couldn’t
conjure the cry, the throat that seemed to yield
to bliss like a genie released at last, the rose-blossom
of health and cellulite rippling
warm as raw fleece, the half-lifted rump, a pale linen
bunched in the damp of it.
I harkened to the picturesque call of maidens
from tower tops, the clichéd cry of the fallen
from grace, I could fathom the tear
of pubescent girl flesh
in the solitary cells of Evin prison,
but Rembrandt’s Danaë!
How he wished for her thighs to do more
than acquiesce. How she’d found the aplomb to bare
more than one length of skin at a time
I had yet to learn.
The Immigrant and Lament
Here’s how it went—
the wind soughed,
I played deaf and stared
ahead those mornings the sky
was a clear-day blue.
I was busy, had begun already
to flay my skin. Yes, it hurt.
How to tell it so you’d understand I didn’t like
the feel of it no more, nor the flesh
and blood I’d brought with.
Well, I had nowhere to turn. I’d clambered out
of rubble and ran
for you, you see. Then, pared,
I began nitpicking, (it would be years
before a variation of my smile
or gait would scab with an inflection
I thought you’d approve). I picked till then
at my insistent face in the mirror, bridled
my mother tongue, swallowed radifs and quatrains.
Once obsolete, I could lie
about where I’d come from and those
I’d left to die.
I stood sorely out of doors, blended
with hollow berries
and poisonous bristles of the common yew.
Don’t get me wrong. None of it was your fault.
It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been a guest.
It wouldn’t have mattered. If I’d been a guest
I would’ve known my place.
I would’ve arrived with my very tongue and God,
cupping a bowl of night-blooming jasmine
in my palms, the troop of sitar players
at my heels would’ve set the mood at the moonlit
divan and the arm’s length between us
would’ve been fragrant with petals.
But fear trembled
in the tenor of my voice and settled
into the carriage of your mouth.
Rose D’Ispahan
for Fariba
I always visit the same spots at The Huntington
Botanical Gardens. On the path to the Chinese pavilion,
I turn the corner at Shakespeare’s bust, past the small
fountain neatly spilling. Advanced in midsummer,
the garden’s flooded with profuse personalities—
Ingrid Bergman,
American Beauty,
Abby’s Angel
I pause at la rose du petit prince, bent low
to the ground, the silken hem of her mauve petals
scalloped like an old nightgown—a pale ghost
of the early days where she stood aloft the escarpment,
brandishing her four thorns, coughing her low-throated
cough into the wind, like the husky sounds
from your then lush lips no one suspected
mute till parted. I try to remember why I liked her
best, not because le petit prince left as princes must,
as I did. I envisage the end—the rose chilled
without her screen. Without her glass globe
the drawn-out draft pulls at her limbs, she succumbs
to frost, the butterflies called away. Now splayed
at my feet, uprooted, fallen from the twinkle-star,
she has yet to recover. Mother, you
were such a proud flower. You packed for me
knowing it was for good. You never asked,
Who now will hear the phone ring?
Who is to interpret this lingering ache?
Who will tell of the news, the war, who?
Who will speak for the mouths in constant motion?
Mother, once your little prince left, how did you haggle
for rationed coupons? Who signed the air-raid siren
into your eyes? You managed though the house no longer heard
the doorbell, could barely read or write, every room dumb,
half-opened doors shutting without a sound.
I tried to imagine you dying in different ways,
but you lay unconscious again, caught under the fridge,
its heavy door yanked off, the light inside flickering its last.
Once I dreamt you on your back, someone had pulled
the wall size canvas of the English colonel in the hall
over you like a full-length shroud. At the airport,
you remembered the head buried in you breast
was only a child’s.
خدا نگهت داره.
God will keep you,
you signed through my tears.
*
I rise, having paid my respects as though you were dead,
and continue on my path to the pavilion, searching still
for rose d’isphahan, the pompon of Princes.
You tamed me Mother, you have a prince’s promise,
I will be forever responsible for my rose.
Beloved
for Amoo
I see now that all is well—the black mission,
prolific, fruit spaced out three inches along
each limb, the cat drops off a mole a day,
never a bird; a flock of house finches fret
on the weed-ridden lawn as though dandelions
were at stake. This is how I think it victory,
looking back at that final visit to Parioli.
Around our usual corner on the elegant via Collina,
graffiti now screamed in red and green,
Stranieri! Leave and leave Italy for Italians!
We queued at the Alimentari for a bottle
of ferrarelle naturale and a block of Bel Paese,
you clutching your cane, the MSF contact
for physician-assisted suicide face down
in your drawer like a wild card.
This is how I loved you—calling on la Signora
from behind his lavish display case, the clerk
skipped us and you went on leaning into that grand
ivory handle, your brow lifted under that invisible
crown of laurels as if in that moment the very world
had need of us, and I pressed the heels
of my patent leather stilettos into my spot in line,
lifted my diminutive head in genteel
admiration of the animated flourish
of the bow of a panettone before me.
Yes, we abided as though we belonged,
with our painstakingly-acquired palate
for fine cheese. Thirsty for the expensive
effervescence of spring water we stood
with just enough euros in our pockets
for a final ration of water and a wedge
of Bel Paese—the glamorous country
you had courted and escorted me through.
Your love affair of a lifetime! Italia!
where I too learned to woo. Seduced by the lilt
of her tongue, I tagged along, ran ahead
careening the rounded corners of her cobbled alleys.
Her carefree cadence rolled off the soft palate
of your mouth and nestled into my ears, language
gushing at windblown fountains where gods
coupled in the open, where I, the lovestruck child,
raised my pinwheel to ride the same generous wind.
You poured her like pearls onto my lap as though
she were yours to bequeath—this country that now
shrugged you off as you made ready to die, frightened
the night would come where you would need
ask of her to raise your head for a sip of water.
When Your Sky Runs Into Mine
The curse never fell upon our nation till now! I never felt it till now.
—The Merchant of Venice (Act III, Scene 1) by William Shakespeare
When your sky runs into mine,
I’ll be sure to see to your needs, address you
with the appropriate personal pronoun.
If you’ve left behind your hands, organs,
dimensions,
senses, affections, passions,
I’ll assist you in seeking immunity, in signing
the requisite papers.
When your sky runs into mine,
I’ll grade your pigmentation by degrees,
screen you under fluorescent glare
and adjust your Protection Factor.
In class, when your child raises his hand,
I’ll give him a chance
to demonstrate your literacy rate.
In mixed company,
I’ll commend your tongue
on how well it speaks my tongue,
as you pronounce my name,
your accent on a foreign syllable.
When you Naturalize,
I’ll welcome you with a handful
of questions:
Where were you born?
Are you still mourning?
Have you sworn
to return home?
When I visit your country,
I’ll carry a trifle of your words
to use in fair trade. I’ll express myself
with a generous tip and thank you
and yours for civilizing the children
not to stare, for sterilizing
the countertops for my intestinal flora.
When your sky runs into mine,
I’ll read your poem
and compliment Jalaluddin Rumi
on his mother-tongue.