Sahar Fathi

Sahar Fathi graduated from the University of Washington Law School and is a member of the New York bar. She has served as adjunct faculty at both Seattle University and the University of Washington School of Law. She has been published in the Seattle Journal for Social Justice, the Seattle Journal of Environmental Law, and the Gonzaga Law Review. Her poetry has been printed in Writers Resist and the Writers Resist: Anthology (2018), as well as featured in the Feelings' Journal, Not Your Mother's Breastmilk, and is forthcoming in Swimming with Elephants. 

2.0

Today, midday

While walking down the street

I inhaled and smelled Iran

And for a moment

I forgot my people were 

Banned 2.0

Travel restricted

With bills pending for 

Sanctions 

And preemptive force

To rain bombs 

On my cousins

For a moment

I forgot the hate and 

Instead 

I smelled the honeysuckle

In my grandmother's front yard

And I was

Transported to the bazaars

Filled with people

Who look like me

Who tweeze one eyebrow

Into two

Like me

Who can pronounce my name

Properly 

People descended

From poets like Rumi 

And super hero attorneys

Like Shirin Ebadi

For a moment I forgot

My blood shot eyes

And my pounding headache

From restless nights 

And aggressive headlines

Spewing lies 

For a moment

I was just me

Unapologetically

Bound between two countries