Playing One Side Off the Other Only Hurts Pakistan in the End
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A state whose national-security policy is founded on duplicity founders there.
Poem: "Three Gifts"
In Memory of Saeed
One day my father called us and said:
I have three gifts for you —
A red heart, an hourglass, and...
O God, I don't remember the other one.
Mehdy took the heart
Opened its two halves
And strummed the strings of its chambers.
I took the hourglass
And along its white sands
I fell from one half to the other
Asking myself:
What can be done in three minutes?
And Saeed
At age ten went to Paris
For heart surgery
And at age twenty-nine
He was executed in Tehran.
I remember him.
He had red cheeks
And strong hands.
March 1994
Recommended Citation:
Majid Naficy, "Poem: "Three Gifts"" (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, July 28, 2009)