Reflections in Youth

Poetry by Ashley Hajimirsadeghi, photograph by Tommy Lee Walker

Atonement

Calypso in 2019 belts out

“I’m so tired of love songs”

while putting on bee venom

& placenta face masks; she’s

always on house arrest for

seeking out lonely escapades.

She’s just another hauntingly

pretty girl driven mad by

rebellion. She’s smitten with

disorder; her high school

superlative is a synonym to

chaos. She protests at the

women’s march with signs

saying Hestia was the original

feminist, succumbing to

a fate predestined by the

oracles. Meet Calypso once

and she won’t stay long;

she’s everyone’s old flame.

Her poetry overflows with

garden terraces, of Orpheus’

Eurydice, a semester’s worth

of infatuations. Some say

she’s an out of tune wind chime,

a potential swipe right on Tinder,

but she claims she was born

in the wrong century.

Heirlooms

It wasn’t until we got onto the interstate

did the smoke start rising, breaking free

from the monotony of classic rock songs

and old copies of Harper’s Bazaar

you’d hoarded since 1988.

The smoke clogged our lungs,

dancing from cigarette to nostril—

I remember bitterly coughing,

saying stop it, stop it, but you

were silent, taking another drag,

watching how the smoke rose

and disappeared into the 4 o’clock traffic.

You say your father smoked too,

that it runs in the family—

I guess this means I’m next.

It reminds you of home,

where cultured men sit and smoke

in their front yards while watching

the sunset. You claim Qazvani

sunsets are different, a kaleidoscope

native only to your hometown.

But the smell of gasoline and ashes

and burning nicotine doesn’t smell like

family or home to me—

I am restless and wish to dissipate,

just like the smoke.