Soraya Shalforoosh
Getting to the Gate
O’ the dead live in my name
O’ the living are new faces with
chants from revolutions past
There is an owl in my caftan
Beaches slip from my feet
That sand is Caspian
The past is plopped on our present
“And where was your Father Born”
And when was the last time someone from Iran stayed with you”
“And when did you go to Iran”
“Why did you go to Iran”
“Point to your Mother”
“Stand with one leg on your knee arms apart”
I pull on my dress
Pages fall off me
My son collects them, Momma why do they do this to you,
My skin is ink, my name is caught in the scanner
What does it say, what does it say
Soraya Shalforoosh is the author of This Version of Earth (Barrow Street, 2014). She has been a featured poet in the Journal of the Academy of American Poets Emerging Poet Series, and has had poems and reviews in Black Earth Institute, Apogee Journal, Taos Journal, Barrow Street, Lumina Journal, Skanky Possum, and Marlboro Review, among others. She hold an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School and as an undergraduate at Clark University won the Prentiss Cheney Hoyt Poetry award. She has been a guest poet at William Paterson University in New Jersey, Berkeley College in New York, San Jose State University and a guest speaker at the American Embassy in Algeria.
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