Read Poem: Unburdening, by Mark Strohschein

for Masume

An Iranian woman believes
she will be married off
to a Muslim man but it is
her sister chosen this time.

Fearing she will be next
she begs her father
to immigrate to the U.S. She
leaves to re-create her life.

Iranian relatives call & ask for money
in desperation. She gives &
gives until she cannot swallow
that burden any longer. It ends.

Her greatest secret: In 1990 she marries
a Lutheran man, a U.S. military veteran,
and in her heart it is right, but he is
not Muslim, defying parental orders.

This phone call reshapes the
course of her life. Her mother reacts
to this news: Well, Christ was a prophet,
one of the holy ones, so that is OK.

But it is her father’s wrath she
anticipates, expects the hammer
of his voice to fall upon her, the flood
of time & distance to drown her.

But he asks his beautiful immigrant
daughter very slowly in Farsi—
the years had only softened his heart:
Is he good to you?