By a silence scream of someone in my dreams,
I have been involved with these anxieties for many year.
Do not say, want, ask anything of my answers.
Do not let them touch my books.
They are taking me…Ah! Fatemeh!

Who are the shadows walking down the alley?
Whose first name are they looking for in the list?
Please tell them not to wait for me.
Since they are neither confident of you nor this home.
They are taking me…Ah! Fatemeh!

Through mother’s veil and father’s jacket,
through my childhood pictures and wet eyes,
through the memories of your arms, which are dizzy and float,
they are pulling my dress toward the door.
They are taking me…Ah! Fatemeh

Do not let them touch you and the fear inside you.
Do not let them hear your voice or your smell.
Do not let sob fill your throat with sorrow.
Do not ask me not to have a nightmare of falling.
They are taking me…Ah! Fatemeh

You are floating on cry like a dizzy fish.
Your wild ruffled hair beneath your scarf…
Stop one moment! Do not move! I want to keep you in my mind! I know you will come one day and
pull me out of the torture.
They are taking me…Ah! Fatemeh

You are waiting for me since the days of apprehension.
You are restless for me, like two eyes staring at door.
You are my postern, like a chain of woven hair.
I feel you near me, more always than every…
They are taking me…Ah! Fatemeh!

Fatemeh Ekhtesari

Translated by Hossein Fallah