Time Bender
by Arthur Kayzakian
Time takes the shape of a trusted border
because it never turns back for you.
Because betrayal in Farsi means khyanat,
translated back into English: “to sin,”
as in the desert is sun-wrecked by the closest star,
as in sweat can soak a telegram
in a few seconds.
At the firing squad, a letter tucked into your breast
and the words sink inside you.
Fool, who says you will need a letter
when a decade of collapsing cities is written on your face.
Since you were pulled under the scorch of the sun,
time becomes the message you never read.
Men on horses screaming, Khyanat! Khyanat!
Making an animal out of your resistance, confiscating your jacket of bombs,
they pull you through the sand.
Inside you now,
dark holes of music trying to make a way out of your mouth.
Time turns the ink of your letters into songs you never sing.
Arthur Kayzakian is a poet, editor and teacher who lives in California. He was born in Tehran, Iran. His family sought political asylum in London when he was three years old to escape the Iranian Revolution. He earned his MFA from San Diego State University. He is a contributing editor at Poetry International. His chapbook, My Burning City, was a finalist for the Locked Horn Press Chapbook Prize and Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize.
He is a recipient of the Minas Savvas Fellowship, and his poems and translations have appeared in or are forthcoming from several publications including Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, COUNTERCLOCK, Chicago Review, Locked Horn Press and Prairie Schooner. artkayzakian.com