by Shirin Jabalameli
 |
| Plot Forty-Two is located in Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran. It is associated with those killed in the recent war involving Iran, the United States, and Israel. |
In Plot Forty-Two,
the war is not yet over.
A bullet
is lodged in the throat of the earth,
and every season,
a fresh clover
pushes through its mouth.
On the stones
are names
cut short
by the blast;
names that, if called aloud,
might make someone
turn back
beyond the trench.
Here,
death smells of metal;
of a shirt
that never dried in the sun,
of gunpowder
that, months later,
still clings to the mothers’ hair.
The war
came this far
on mud-caked boots.
Even now,
its footprints
remain
on the sleeping stones.
In one of the graves,
a child lies buried.
In his last drawing,
there was a sky
and the very airplane
that had passed overhead.
And that soldier,
perhaps he is still running in his dreams,
from one trench to another,
his mouth full of earth,
a letter in his breast pocket
that never reached its destination.
No one knows
what he was thinking
in his final moments.
An empty magazine?
His brother’s hands?
The window he had meant to repair
before winter?
Perhaps
all he wanted
was a glass of water.
And this
is the most terrible thing about war:
that even on the brink
of disappearing,
a human being
can still feel thirsty.
Beside one of the stones,
a mother sits.
She does not weep.
She says nothing.
With her fingernail,
she brushes the dirt
from a name
that, each time,
sinks back into the earth.
As though she were still
brushing dust from his shoulders,
straightening his collar
for his return.
In Plot Forty-Two,
the wind blows,
and no one carries a gun.
Yet as I walk among the graves,
I lower my head,
as though I still had to cross
a stretch of ground
that might explode
at any moment.
Beyond the wall,
the city is busy buying bread.
Buses arrive.
Traffic lights turn green.
Someone quickens their pace
to avoid being late.
And here,
beneath the earth,
a young man remains
forever the age
at which he should have begun to live.
Sometimes,
this is what war is:
not the sound of an explosion,
but a rented room,
a broken radio,
a shirt hanging behind a door,
someone
who was supposed to come home
on Friday evening.
And now,
in Plot Forty-Two,
the roots of trees
thread through bones,
unaware
which side of the front line
they belong to.
I leave the cemetery.
I slip my hand into my pocket.
The key is cold,
and the cold
climbs to my wrist.
Suddenly,
I think of home:
a door closing,
the clatter of dishes in the kitchen,
someone in the next room
calling out,
“Are you home?”
And I think of all those who are gone,
all those
who will never again
be asked
that question.
Shirin Jabalameli is an Iranian poet, artist, and writer. Her poems have appeared in international journals including Braided Way Magazine (USA), The Lake (UK), The New Verse News (USA), and Poetry Super Highway(USA), where she was selected Poet of the Week. She has authored books including Crows Rarely Laugh, Apranik, 101 Moments, and 25 Fell from the Frame; her latest book titled Beneath the Skin of Tehran was recently published. She was nominated for the 2026 Pushcart Prize for her poem “The Lineage of Birds”. Her short story “The Red Thread” was selected among the Top 25 Works Worldwide for the Hannah Arendt Special Edition presented by the International Human Rights Art Movement in Manhattan, New York.
