Golnoosh Nour is a poet, prose writer, and lecturer. She’s the author of The Ministry of Guidance and other stories – shortlisted for the Polari Prize 2021. Her work has also appeared in Granta, Spontaneous Poetics, and Columbia Journal amongst others. She has co-edited Magma 80 and an anthology of contemporary queer writing forthcoming from Muswell Press.
Sister! We are dripping with rage
a diamond in the shape of a tongue
it blinds, gives life, so sharp it cuts,
our rage so glam it’s hypno tic, a violent twitch, a stunning bitch, she
glows in the dark, radiates out of our eyes, she
stalks all the wrongs, the righteous wrongs.
Sister, how much longer will we carry this burden of diamonds, jewels
that pour & poison. I am sick of this constant radiance that feels like radiation
we use the sharp edges of our tongues to cut the veins of our fathers, but
when will it end? I know myself; I will always trade my jewels for blood, silk for knives
when I say yes, I mean shame, when I say no, I mean emerald gold
Sister, it’s always the fathers the fathers’ fathers oh how we want them
dead & alive & yes we
will always say yes as we
shred
their magnifi cent
flesh
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