In a taxi in Isfahan we have no language only a veil of silence between us like the chador she holds thumb to finger across her lips. Crossing the Allahverdi bridge whose arcades open and close the view of birds banking the sunset we try to see each other. She sees a freckled woman hair straggled by wind and reaches across the men to roll the windows up -- a courtesy for my unchadored head. When I leave the taxi I hold the door until she tucks her length of wimple in. The chador slips. Beneath eyes warm as sun-baked plums, there is the corner of a grin. The thread of knowledge gleams through the fabric of silence as the river bosoms the brooch of the sun. |