Unnamed

She whips

her hair up

into a giant

middle finger.

           A gun barrel

           stares back,

           the bobbing

           black

           monolith

           rising high

           from her

           scalp —

                       The video ends.

I read the caption.

Shot six times…

           not wearing a hijab…

Death

                       for a ponytail…

My God.

***

A week later.

I’m drinking

a black coffee

when I see

           a few girls

           doing homework,

           hijabs gliding

                       down, under

                       the chin; a wing

                       of black cloth

                       obedience.

I sip my coffee.

Arabica.

I remember her

mighty

middle finger.

Did she drink coffee?

***

Ottoman Sultan

Selim I

deemed coffee

halal in 1542.

His predecessors

deemed the drink

haram, punishable

by

                       death.

***

I search

for the video,

hoping

to learn

her name.

All Google gives me

                                        are the names

                                        of countless

                                        other women

                                        put to

                                        death

                                        by morality

                                        police

                                                         read

                                        that again

                                        for

wearing tights,

not wearing a hijab;

for protesting

not wearing tights

and wearing hijabs.

***

           I still cannot find

           the video.

***

To know, for example, that in Farsi the present perfect is called the

relational past, and is used at times to describe a historic event

whose effect is still relevant today, transcending the past

-Solmaz Sharif, The Master’s House

A practical application:

***

Yes, six

bullets;

yes,

death;

no,

I still cannot

find her name,

if only

to write it

down, to

                       remember.

And yet

her giant

middle

finger

is-was.

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