There is a particular sunlight, a specific kind
a honey colored glow that creates and defeats
brings warmth and depth to living—to life—in 
Tehran…to thick whitewashed walls, old stories;
dark espresso and cool linen…mothers holding
children like their ideas of tomorrow

The sunlight didn’t change yet became different,
became something menacing something
conceived in dark minds and the place is suddenly
dangerous where before it was singing holding
hands down wide streets it is now not a place to
be so her world physically moved

Picked up in dusky half-light and taxis and cars and
jet planes; her open eyes and empty thoughts, lost
on waiting for the next new thing, the next change
of what she felt saw had in her hand, her small fingers
unable to grasp the huge difference as her yesterday
melted into her tomorrow

Different places names people different just different
time rolled forward without prodding without care
and school and life and everything spoken in a
new accent an English too English to bear;
said with an expectation of impression…of
knowing her place in the world

Flip forward past school friends places times and
into today where she is connected and alive in
the center of her world her life a movement around
understanding and being who she wants to be
regardless of should or shouldn’t…bereft of
regret she orbits her happiness lightly

The sunlight in the city on some days at some
times comes falling honey colored and warm and
brings a stray memory bundled within and she is
smiling running laughing down wide streets
holding hands…and now living the ideas
of her mother’s tomorrow.