Zan/Dan

Ghazals by Leila Zemestan, titled on a split word: Persian zendān, prison, broken open into zan, woman. The verse works the same seam. What are these bundled griefs in my womb — and the doctor, asked about the new pain, answers not what is it but who is it. You call her mother, sometimes your wife; but set aside her relation to you, and the woman herself — who is she? Veiled outside the door and stripped of shame within it: don't call a woman human, call her a kind of amphibian. Text in Dari/Persian.

Author: لیلا زمستان

Original title: زَن/دان