Shadi Eskandani

metamorphic

1.
four walls
a window stained
glass glimmers daylight hints
swinging green in the distance.
inside this dwelling   wild rue
rust   rot
and she – a bonfire
sanctified
bare skin glistening gasoline setting
ablaze ancient rugs sacred
texts   lapsed syntax
past disgrace(d) as she dances
with gold bangles and her ghosts
burning it all down.

2.
red tulip in one hand
machete in the other –
what it takes to piece yourself together.

3.
saturn came went
i rose from ashes
heart aligned with ancestral hymns
of a distant wilderness
hallowed
harnessed
transformation syncopated
inside fissures of self
cardamom in cracks of concrete
a temporal distortion
shedding skin shifting
truths      trauma
persistence

in the howl of a lineage
i smear ashes of a shadowed self
across my face       naked
above this wreckage
hair aflame i rise
screaming into dusk air

i am here
daughter of fire.