– after the photograph “Azerbaijan. Baku. Salt Marshes. 1997” by Reza
“One day, Armenian military men arrived at our door. Years later, the high principal that I was lives with his family in a slum in the outskirts of Baku and works all day to extract salt so as to feed the children…. my kids do not go to school any longer, and I cannot teach them anything. When I arrive back home at night after walking the long distance that separates me from the salt marshes, they are already asleep.”
___
In old Russia, the most important guest of the King and Queen
was seated nearest the salt canisters.
___Miles of coarse white.
___The blue-black sky behind him like an apology.
___A white cloth over his head to prevent sweat from tainting the salt.
Farbad’s hard drive into land, to prod out the needed.
All the extracting must amount to something.
___The shovel’s metal head stabs white,
___like how teachers coax goodness out.
___A salt marsh must surely shrink.
With blistered hands,
he works the mind into a fervor, works
the shovel’s long handle into a splinter.
___Those who have nothing to give
___are no different
___than those with something but with no means to give it.
He walks home, kisses the children good-night,
their little skulls open on the hinges.