My grandmother stood on the curb. In her hands
were envelopes, which she pressed into our bodies 
the way she might push yellow wanting from her chest. 
In her mouth was scarlet Persian, like paint. 

We delighted in her sun-glorious language—
which, estranged from Iran, felt only ours.  
!e pomegranates in her apartment were cracked 
from ripeness and grief. I was blurry and small. 

We le" her with mint and lemons and no children,
and when we drove o#, she became small on the curb.
In fact, it looked as if the curb swallowed her and then 
dusted and blew over like a city desert. 

On Monday her body was $lled with strokes, 
no words, just scarlet bleeding which killed her. !e moon watched 
her leave and did not intervene. I was not there

I was not there, to watch her body become 
hurting and still, or watch her red mouth turn blue and numb. 

!e $rst, aching time back to Los Angeles,
I searched for her hands and her language 
in the small apartment, in the papers, in the fruit bowl.
I even sought the dusted curb, the moon, I couldn’t $nd her. 

Aisthesis      Volume 13,  202283

When the Moon Took Maman Lila, It Took Me, Too

by Ava Minu-Sepehr