Tower of Silence: The Cadaver

by Khashayar Mohammadi ​

the martyr woke
dipped in the blood of the tulips
how obscene is death’s description of the battlefield
the nation’s newly defined borders for scale
an armband, quoting scripture, drips blood
lesser than a cause but greater
than any single instance of fire

a scorched seaside
hands clasped in prayer
at the tilt of the milky way above
(that dark blaze of the temporal)
((that which no one can speak to))
(((not for millenia to come)))

as the mud hardened at the footsteps of a djinn
we followed in the Vestigium, climbed mountains
and found at the feet of the temple
past martyrs
prostrate
their eyes
pecked clean

Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi (he/they) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They were shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke poetry prize, they are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize, and they are the author of three poetry chapbooks and two translated poetry chapbooks. Their debut poetry collection Me, You, Then Snow is out with Gordon Hill Press. Their second book, WJD, is forthcoming in a double volume with the translation of Saeed Tavanaee’s The OceanDweller from Gordon Hill Press fall 2022. Their collaborative poetry manuscript with poet Klara Du Plessis is forthcoming with Palimpsest Press Fall 2023.