CRITICA

Kian Pirfalak, a 9 year old boy, was killed with a bullet to his lung. His father was also hit with several bullets, too. He was one of at least 47 children to have been killed in the Iranian government’s brutal crackdown on nationwide anti-establishment protests that erupted in September of 2022.

Kian was from southwestern Iran. He hoped to become a robotics engineer.

Dear Kian,
I write to you from a faraway land
I write this poem as my tribute to you

I heard you wanted to be a robotics engineer
when you grew up

I will remember you
wherever you might be
high above in the sky
beyond the mountains,
beyond the rainbow and the clouds

At the funeral
your mother cried in outrage.
she recited her poem,
‘you, dear people, the word hatred
is written on Khamenei’s
menacing face and his ugly long beard.
the beard that comes down to his chest,
a chest filled with detestation
and his heart is made of stone’.
she screamed louder and louder.
it thundered through the air
‘Whatever he says is not true, it is a lie!’

all the mourners circle her
with lit candles in their hands
praying for you, and
pray for your father
not to die

remember the day he made a video of you
as you let the boat you made float in the pond
You called the God of play, Dionysus
and the God of clouds
in the purple sky
and the God of mountains
who were kissed by the rivers.

That bloody day in November
you were inside your father’s car
when a bullet punctured your lung
but, you could not come back to life.

Mother wrapped your blood-soaked body in the ice
prepared you for a journey to the underground.

gladiolas bowed in sorrow.
the wildflowers drank the sun
into their veins
weeping grasses huddled in silence.
next to an unmarked grave

Your room always remembers you and wait.
for you to come back to play with your toys.
or if you look down from
the arc of your rainbow
you can play in the heaven.

Kian,
Now, you must know.
Finally, women fight a hellish fight
on the streets of Tehran
they don’t carry any weapon
they chant with their cursing lips
“death to the dictator!”