Epistle and others

Kin

Four Voices in Translation

Popular Now
Mana Aghaee, Leila Farjami
2 minute read
Dark Light

Epistle and others

by Mana Aghaee, Leila Farjami

EPISTLE

Hello my dear,
I write this letter to you
as the night stretches on.

The hour is
four stars shy of morning.

A bird pecks at my left eyelid.

Sara lies beside the box of toys
like a tranquil doll,
from her innocent smile
It is clear she is dreaming
of koloocheh1 and a kite.

If you are wondering about me,
I am OK.
Today marks a full year
since I took to sewing.
I thread the long days 
of anticipation,
baste tiny stars of hope 
to the night’s black skirt.

At times my eyes brim with tears
for no reason,
and a place near my heart
feels a piercing ache.
Otherwise
everything remains
as before.

Around here
you had witnessed the rising prices,
the unemployment,
now homelessness has added itself.
They say prostitutes 
rent gravestones.
Brothers behead each other
for coupons.

Your mother was here yesterday.
She still wore black.

The rest visit now and then.
They are well, yet none speaks 
of anything 
but cars and investments.

My dear,
my handwriting is ugly—
pardon it 
with your own beauty.

The palm you planted
grows with each day.

If you are able, 
write a letter
or phone,
send a cloud 
from that silent sky
of exile.

I am not claiming
It will rain 
with two drops.
I only know
it has always been wet
after your departures.
  1. A traditional Iranian cookie filled with date paste, walnut, or spiced sugar ↩︎

EARTH

There are roads
broken from the world,
people
scattered by wind
days 
called oblivion.

Come—
come with me,
so I may show you a bombed city 
hidden behind the brief headlines 
of the morning paper,
the alleys that emptied
as we slept.

Do not say—
do not say windows always open
face to face,
that the sky is the same blue 
everywhere.

Not all children 
reach home.

Earth is not only 
our childhood quarter.
 

HIDE AND SEEK

Let’s return
to the first days of rain.
Let’s run.
Let’s close our eyes,
call to each other
anew.

Hide under the school benches
a little while.
Count backward.
If you find us too soon,
we promise to reveal
which song deceived you,
and how this bird 
traveling so far
is someone’s childhood.

What are you doing
behind those trees?

Don’t be afraid.

These shadows are us,
with you—
we’ve come from the past
to catch you off-guard 
through branches and leaves,
just like old friends.


Artwork courtesy of Youssef ElNahas

Author

Mana Aghaee

Mana Aghaee is an Iranian-Swedish poet, translator, and scholar based in Stockholm. She is the author of several acclaimed poetry collections, including If Death Had Your Lips and I Am Jesus, Son of Myself, and the translator of The Winged Bicycle: Swedish Haiku and One-Day Flowers: Selected Poems of Ko Un. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and widely featured in international journals and anthologies.

Translator

Leila Farjami

Leila Farjami is an Iranian-American poet, translator and psychotherapist. Her debut poetry collection, Daughter of Salt, an Editor’s Selection at Trio House Press, is forthcoming in July 2026.

She is the recipient of The Iowa Review Award in Poetry (2025), The Cincinnati Review’s Schiff Award in Poetry (2024), and PEN America’s Emerging Voices Fellowship (2025). Her work has been recognized as a finalist for the Prufer Poetry Prize from Pleiades, the Trio House Press Award, the Perugia Press Prize, Southern Indiana Review‘s Michael Waters Poetry Prize. She has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, Pleiades, Swamp Pink, AGNI, The Cincinnati Review, The Mississippi Review, Southern Indiana Review, Southern Humanities Review, and in anthologies from Sundress and Guernica Editions, among others. She lives in Los Angeles.

Related Posts