Modi Nikko
Through Glassy Eyes
To the Memory of “Woman, Life, Freedom”
Tear gas clouds my glass.
Girls’ screams hang in the air.
The childless streets—play evaporates.
Faces of women, Faces of men: equal blood.
All my panes shiver in the mass
Of bullets, bikes, blasts. Boasts split the air.
Blood threads its quiet path.
A woman with a damp cloth
Peers through my glassy eyes.
I have two sides of sight.
She wipes one face clear,
And I am still fug and rust.
Her eyes, a memoir swollen with rain—
Pain, humiliation, death, again and again.
A girl cries out before the crowd.
The riders rush; the crowd falls; the girl still stands.
A biker raises the gun.
She petrifies. Pellets bloom toward the sun.
Bullets are shy; death is not.
The girl slips into the trees.
Death trails. The woman sees—
A spark in her gaze, no wings, stands still.
The girl disappears in the park, forgets the earth,
Leaving only her eyes behind—small witnesses, unblinking.
After midnight, in the hush of exhaust,
She looks for the forsaken eyes.
She lays the eyes in the wet cloth.
Tears of woman, of life, of freedom,
Will not dry.
Now a wall of all your eyes
Rises behind my glassed stare,
Regarding this land of haze.
Death has not seen us yet.
▪
Today, a new day, unchanged—death bragging loud as always.
The woman and I—watching still.
It approaches—a sharp sound.
We shatter.
The eyes remain.
Modi Nikko (b. 1996, Iran), is a poet, playwright, and theater director whose work spans both Persian and English. His writing often explores the interconnected themes of death, myth, violence, freedom, and beauty, shaped by his personal history and collective experiences. His primarily focuses on absurdist theater and has written two original plays, in addition to directing three stage productions—two of which are adaptations of English-language works, including David Mamet’s *Oleanna* and Brian Clark’s *Whose Life Is It Anyway?* His poetry reflects a similar interest in tension, rupture, and liminality, frequently engaging with themes of the body, memory, and the unstable boundaries between inner and outer worlds. His English-language poems are poetic reinterpretations of his Persian originals, crafted through interpretive transformation rather than direct translation.
Banner Art:
Photo by Modi Nikko
