A dog has taken my head

along with all its thoughtful worms

that squirm and bite

Yes! You — O thousand-year-old rusted robe —

they nailed you to the wall

and entrusted the endless delirium of your out-of-tune nights

to the sun,

so that its shadow, deep in your darkness,

would become the bedfellow of light.

When they traded your silent outcry

for a headline decree,

I took you to the labyrinth of silence — forever.

Unwittingly, I planted the weeds of death

beside the budding light of my own blossom,

a gardener terrified of his own walking stick…

A dog has taken my head

so I might, for a moment, rest — carefree and indifferent.

*Parsa Golshani, imprisoned in Evin Prison, wrote this poem in memory of Baktash Abtin.*