With Four Lines from Season Four: Episode Six, by Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad

For Anthony Bourdain

Maman flipped the pot held steady against serving plate
to uncover saffron-ed rice cake, demanded that I share
with the Umrikayees, koofteh and mahi and noon paneer
with sabzi, shook her head—here we can’t find the right barbari,
but I obliged, impressed the need the way I could, took my friends
to remote restaurants for chelo kabab, eagerly recommended
joojeh and koobeedeh and gestured with my fingers how we press
the meat to skewers. I always thought, this, maybe, to replicate
a home-cooking culture orated by my grandparents,
who put far more on the table than anyone could conceivably eat,
my grandparents whose home just minutes from Naqsheh Jahan,
the Royal Square framed by vaults and arches in Isfahan, once
a Silk Road stop, our beloved destination during every visit;
so imagine our awe as we watched from across the globe,
how our brethren greeted the khareji with a charming Mister,
then first name, and the delight brimming from my parents’ eyes,
as he blithely dined on our dishes, right there in the cities of their origin,
each bite he took, our satisfaction, each morsel of the meals I have listed
consumed, swelled our stomachs with the pleasure of fulfillment,
that at least for a moment, it was possible to carve a semblance
of a motherland without our mothers, and thanks to him,
all those behind televisions tuned might forget about the politics
and lick their lips, and the entrees we have tendered would transcend
our tables, and our grandparents wouldn’t feel so far, tucked in a city
so absent from these maps. And as he roamed the Square after another meal,
to the hum of shopkeepers and shoppers softening, as the camera
panned the expanse of the sun setting on this striking spectacle built
four hundred years ago, we could almost feel the temperature drop
to a desert cool from our living room, as night befell the bazaar and palace,
the vaults and arches aglow in gold, as visitors ran their hands
through bursting fountains, and the crowd quieted for prayer—
ask any of us born abroad, especially we Isfahanis, what these scenes
do for us, just the mere image of Naqsheh Jahan seems to make our hearts
ache a little less, but after this episode, with the trace of these footsteps
left, I know that next time, Meester Tony, will ache so much more.

Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad is the daughter of Irooni immigrants, a worshipper of space and hyacinths, and an Oscar the Grouch apologist. Her poetry has appeared in Asian American Writers’ Workshop, The Missing Slate, and is forthcoming in Tinderbox Poetry Journal. She is the poetry editor for Noble / Gas Qtrly, and is a Best of the Net, Pushchart Prize, and Best New Poets nominee. She lives in New York where she practices matrimonial law.