Nahid Arjouni is an Iranian-Kurd poet and Scarriet is proud to publish the following four poems of hers— for the first time in English.
A Lock of My Hair
Snip a lock of my hair.
Take it with you.
Doors will open,
when you arrive in any town.
My headscarf will shudder,
if you speak with anyone.
I will be very jealous
if any woman falls in love with you.
That’s how
I spread around the stations of the world.
Being a Buck
I must have been a buck.
I could have attacked humans in cars, buses, homes,
I could have escaped to the highest mountains, where no one could find me.
I could have crossed the edge of the abyss,
into passageways no one could see.
I could have been a buck that had no place to sleep,
the buck that sleeps with a woman who never sleeps in a bed,
I could have been a buck for the woman who still thinks
there is no way but being a buck.
How Many Times…
How many times can we dress our dead?
How many times can we shout in the streets, among the crowds?
How many times can we hide our faces from invisible cameras?
How many times can we take pictures of spouting blood?
How long can we be alive?
Every day, every moment,
One of us dies,
One of us drinks poison,
One of us, afraid of being lost,
Afraid of drinking poison,
Afraid of vanishing in a cell no one can find—
How many times can we
How many times
How many
How
….
Inheritance
We inherit naivete in our home.
My father plays the piano and believes
“Music rescues the world.”
My brother writes letters to the war,
“Hey bastards, wrap it up, can’t you see how many were killed?”
And
I think
“Poetry rescues the middle east.”
Translator Shohreh Laici lives in Tehran
Scarriet 
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