Marjorie Lotfi Gill
my grandmother was called Nasrin,
that she died two years ago in Tabriz
and I couldn’t go to say goodbye,
that she knew nothing of power,
nuclear or otherwise. I want to say
that the fires for Chahar Shanbeh Suri
were built by the hands of our neighbours;
as children we were taught to jump
and not be caught by the flame. I want to say
my cousin Elnaz, the one born after I left,
has a son and two degrees in chemistry,
and trouble getting a job. I want to say
that the night we swam towards the moon
hanging over the horizon of Caspian Sea,
we found ourselves kneeling on a sandbar
we couldn’t see, like a last gift. I want to say
I’m the wrong person to ask.
Marjorie Lotfi Gill, first writer in residence in partnership with Wigtown Book Festival, is a poet based in Edinburgh and the Poet in Residence at Jupiter Artland. She co-founded and runs Open Book, a charity that organises shared reading groups for vulnerable adults, and takes those groups to linked events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.