Unnamed

She whips

her hair up

into a giant

middle finger.

A gun barrel

stares back,

the bobbing

black

monolith

rising high

from her 

scalp —

The video ends.

I read the caption.

Shot six times…

not wearing a hijab…

Death

for a ponytail…

My God.

***

A week later.

I’m drinking

a black coffee

when I see

a few girls

doing homework,

hijabs gliding

down, under

the chin; a wing

of black cloth

obedience. 

I sip my coffee.

Arabica.

I remember her

mighty

middle finger.

Did she drink coffee?

***

Ottoman Sultan

Selim I

deemed coffee

halal in 1542.

His predecessors 

deemed the drink

haram, punishable 

by 

death.

***

I search

for the video,

hoping

to learn

her name.

All Google gives me

are the names

of countless

other women

put to

death

by morality 

police 

read

that again

for

wearing tights,

not wearing a hijab; 

for protesting

not wearing tights

and wearing hijabs.

***

I still cannot find

the video.

***

To know, for example, that in Farsi the present perfect is called the 

relational past, and is used at times to describe a historic event 

whose effect is still relevant today, transcending the past

-Solmaz Sharif, The Master’s House

A practical application:

***

Yes, six

bullets;

yes,

death;

no, 

I still cannot 

find her name,

if only

to write it 

down, to

remember.

And yet

her giant

middle 

finger

is-was.