Research: Journals
The Journal
Issue 32.2
1980: Iran
Peter Campion
At first the demonstration seemed
far off: a caterpillar
brushing against the buildings.
Then the cameras were inside.
The bodies clustered and our flag
danced upward in transparent flames
the kerchiefed faces scattered from
but also keep approaching, tranced.
I remember how this
constrictive chill
wrapped down my ribs
each time they played the clip.
It snaked against an emptiness
the way the bodies spiked
around their rags of flapping ash.
The shock of signals said to bite
or burrow to protect that
central core. And then was gone.
The coldness must have seeped beneath
the plush of assurance.
Purple
leaves of the maple brushing
our window.
"Strawberry Fields"
on the Hi Fi. John Lennon's
"Let me take you down…."
as the tricycle
zoomed me through amber halls.
The world had amplitude.
Then the sound
of my parents in another room.
Their battling a whip lash
of operatic gush and silence.
In snatches as the fabric ripped
it seemed so clear: the dread that clawed me
watching the fire eat the colors
out of the demonstrators' hands
...it said that home was sacred:
beyond opinion or belief
the center of the self (that made
all foreign powers enemies).
And if the fighting meant
abasement cruelty disguise
I would need to fight for it.
