Issue 5, April 2010
{
}+previous || next story+Chador Bat, A Qasideh Ballad
Roger Sedarat
This happened in early spring, the poem,
A baharieh, must first mention that.
I didn’t want to work in the orchard
With cousin Shirin (she called my mom fat).
“A-choo.” I faked terrible allergies
(Dramatic culture taught me how to act).
“Stay home, Haji-jan,” said my grandma Taj;
“We’ll water the norangis and come back.”
I raced through the house in my aunt’s chador,
A child of the night out on the attack.
A Persian qasida ought to diverge
Midway through its theme: This poem’s doing that.
It first doubts the verisimilitude,
Questions of figurations versus fact.
It then critiques the Orientalist
Perspective of what this poet looks at.
Biography follows, significance
Of this poet named Roger Sedarat.
Reductive scholarship begins to kill
The pre-teen spirit of the chadored bat.
So I again fly around my aunts’ house,
Escaping stupid post-modern chit-chat.
Thus, the qasida returns to its theme
As it recreates tension in climax.
I stood upon her vanity to stare
Into the mirror. “Look, I’m Aunt Ezat.”
Open-shut. First man, then woman. How free
In spring to find I could be this or that.
Dichotomous mystery. And God said,
“Let the mouse be juxtaposed with the cat.”
Language inevitably slips and veils
The meaning behind names like “Aunt Ezat.”
The truth is she was on her way back home
Like the kid’s mom in The Cat in the Hat.
I didn’t know. I was having a ball
In her room, swinging my dick like a bat.
“Sheitune!” she screamed (calling me devil).
“Hajijan, tell me, why would you do that?”
The truth is I had no real idea.
It hurt to see my aunt so shocked and sad.
I quickly hid my nakedness in shame
With my Uncle Hajdayee’s World Cup hat.
I walked away backwards, stepping over
Her chador on the ground like a dead bat.
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