Bedtime Story (1)

Sa’id goes missing. Forty years later, my mama tells me his poems got into the wrong hands. It is the night before our flight to Tehran. We pack belongings into suitcases on her bed. The wrong hands are either the old regime’s SAVAK or the new regime’s Basij. Either way, Sa’id is dead now. My mama pulls my journal from the pile and flips through its poems, then shows me a photograph she has saved. Beneath its glossy finish, Sa’id remains eighteen. It is always the year of his death. I trace with my pinky finger the image of his parted lips, thin and delicate. His lashes are so long I want to press mine against his. Promise me, my mama says. Do not become a writer.