For Navid Afkari* and all the innocent lives lost to executions in Iran

What was destined to hang from your neck

was a garland of full-blown flowers,

reflection of the early morning sun

from your gold medal, not the rope

your killers braided of their hatred

their fear, not the noose-drenched

with blood of freedom-seekers.

Your killers called you the enemy

of God; which God promised them

the Heaven in return for your life?

Yet we, the non-believers-in-their-Heaven

the nameless mothers, have lost our faith

in everything but the Earth and ourselves;

our hands and a dream is all we have left.

Every day, as we water the Morning

Glories sprouting by the gallows

we notice a fragile flicker in each others’ eyes:

the young stem will crawl up

the gallows, the green leaves will blossom

to cover the rotten ropes, the indigo flowers

will bloom around the noose to turn it into

a garland worthy of the glory you left behind.

* Navid Afkari was an Iranian medal-winning wrestler who was secretly executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2020. According to Amnesty International, before his execution he “was subjected to a shocking catalogue of human rights violations and crimes, including enforced disappearance; torture and other ill-treatment, leading to forced “confessions”; and denial of access to a lawyer and other fair trial guarantees.”