This is the last article you can read this month
You can read more article this month
You can read more articles this month
Sorry your limit is up for this month
Reset on:
Please help support the Morning Star by subscribing here
They’ve gathered against walls
like trellised fruit, ripening in each other’s sun.
Black cloth dies under their feet.
Discarded headscarves flap from roof-tops.
Sacrificial plaits, flagrant as raven wings,
lie scattered among blood-scented roses.
Mothers, daughters, sisters are flying
into the heat, their mouths uncaged,
voices angry birdcall.
They’re learning to untie knots –
recrafting hijabs into funeral wear, cushion-fill,
drapes for when the moon is bright.
A stitch here, a stitch there...
Mahsa’s shame will be unpicked.
Claire Booker lives in Brighton. Her pamphlet The Bone That Sang is published by Indigo Dreams. 21st-century Poetry is edited by Andy Croft, email [email protected].