Flog!… One.
Flog!… Two.
Flog!… Three.
Flog!… Four.
Watch it! Don’t go over the prescribed count.*
Of that flower-clock at the square in Shiraz–
what do you remember?
Has it stopped ticking?
Flog!… One.
Flog!.. Two.
Flog!… Three.
Flog!… Four.
It’s different, this time. Amazing. Once again?
Tongue-tied. Small. Sheets of colored paper…
Father told me, count, count!
Father. Flower stalk. On a rock. In that year.
Brother. Bound. Patient. Captive.
Flog!… One.
Flog!.. Two.
She screamed, my heart!
Oh, it’s you, mother! With a sick heart?
Pale cheeks. Body cold.
Wooden coffin. Our last encounter.
Flog!… One.
Flog!.. Two.
Oh, my head, my aching head.
Pain. Vertigo.
Such dark times and night on earth.
Woe.
From deep oblivion, an agitation, a gaze…
Myself. My desk. My Office.
Myself. Ceiling. Wall.
* As in a public flogging, administration of hadd, prescribed punishment for a variety of sins or infractions of dietary, sexual, moral and political order. Bezan is the command in Persian to strike, hit, flog. Here it is combined with the number of lashes–trans.
Simin Behbahani’s English Translations from the book entitled A Cup of Sin Courtesy of Syracuse University Press
