The Wind-Up Doll

The Wind-Up Doll

More than this, yes more than this one can stay silent.

With a fixed gaze like that of the dead one can stare for long hours at the smoke rising from a cigarette at the shape of a cup at a faded flower on the rug at a fading slogan on the wall.

One can draw back the drapes with wrinkled fingers and watch rain falling heavy in the alley a child standing in a doorway holding colorful kites a rickety cart leaving the deserted square in a noisy rush

One can stand motionless by the drapes—blind, deaf.

One can cry out with a voice quite false, quite remote "I love..." in a man's domineering arms one can be a healthy, beautiful female

With a body like a leather tablecloth with two large and hard breasts, in bed with a drunk, a madman, a tramp one can stain the innocence of love.

One can degrade with guile all the deep mysteries one can keep on figuring out crossword puzzles happily discover the inane answers inane answers, yes—of five or six letters.

With bent head, one can kneel a lifetime before the cold gilded grill of a tomb one can find God in a nameless grave one can trade one's faith for a worthless coin one can mold in the corner of a mosque like an ancient reciter of pilgrim's prayers. one can be constant, like zero whether adding, subtracting, or multiplying. one can think of your --even your—eyes in their cocoon of anger as lusterless holes in a time-worn shoe. one can dry up in one's basin, like water.

With shame one can hide the beauty of a moment's togetherness at the bottom of a chest like an old, funny looking snapshot, in a day's empty frame one can display the picture of an execution, a crucifixion, or a martyrdom, One can cover the crake in the wall with a mask one can cope with images more hollow than these.

One can be like a wind-up doll and look at the world with eyes of glass, one can lie for years in lace and tinsel a body stuffed with straw inside a felt-lined box, at every lustful touch for no reason at all one can give out a cry "Ah, so happy am I!"'

- Forough Farrokhzad