“Just one eye as yours could be enough—

one for six moons that surround

the mind’s water birth, while a lily on its cot

bloated, lapses. Sparrow, here again! Countless

consuls tower and luff but the world sizes

down to a restless heart:

To the one note that repeats itself and is all.

To the note one repeats to one’s self and all. 

To the one line spitting the heart into flight.

Metaphor is elsewhere, a jewel resulting

in the snout of a pig. Sparrow, here—nearly unresting thing

which always seems suddenly to never have left

my mind. Because you will so easily disappear,

I think of you as infinitely near.”

—Farnoosh Fathi