School Daze    for Armita Geravand

UN experts today expressed

outrage at the deliberate gas

poisonings of more than 1200

schoolgirls in Iran's major cities.

Hate's fragrance erupts, mimics

      mouldering tangerines,

Wafts through corridors like byssus

      veilings upswayed,

Signals poisonings of schoolgirls

      resisting regime.

Hate's fragrance erupts, mimics

      mouldering tangerines,

Scholars remove headscarves;

      hijab mandate, contravene,

Soon invisible bane wends rooms,

      makes learners faint away.

Hate's fragrance erupts, mimics

      mouldering tangerines,

Wafts through corridors like byssus

      veilings unswayed.

Laura Stickney 2023

Notes:

"byssus" is an ancient cloth, finer

than silk. It is made of mollusk fibers.

photograph from Human Rights Watch