<h2>Meet Keiko!</h2>
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<p>Twenty Years ago, when we first moved to St. Louis</p>
<p>I met this lively graduate student named Keiko</p>
<p>After twenty odd years, it is hard to recall details beyond her round face framed by short shiny black hair</p>
<p>But I remember the way she moved through the building with a combination</p>
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<p>of agility and grace, in bursts of short successive moves - much the way robins would explore a tree (without making noise or knocking anything down)</p>
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<p>A year after we had met, Keiko died – suddenly – of lung cancer</p>
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<p>“I didn’t know Keiko smoked!” I said to the teary-eyed friend who brought the news of her death.</p>
<p>“She didn’t,” he said rather hurriedly, and added after a silence, “she was born in Hiroshima.”</p>
<p>Neither of us said much after that.</p>
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<p>Keiko’s round face and shiny black hair have come back, often, these past few days</p>
<p>And every time, I have caught myself drafting a letter in my head, a letter I know I will not put in the mail:</p>
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<p></p>
<p>“Dear Senator Clinton! </p>
<p>I write with a personal request.</p>
<p>If we were careless enough to hand you the key that opens the Oval Office</p>
<p>And with it as many war fronts across the globe as you wish</p>
<p>Please do yourself a favor, throw it away and do not look for it!</p>
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<p>You may want to find out first</p>
<p>Why the idea of “obliterating” seventy million people does not make you shudder</p>
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<p>And if you have the time to pass through St. Louis Missouri,</p>
<p>Please stop by and meet Keiko Yamakawa</p>
<p>Her round face smiling from a hand-made picture frame</p>
<p>Ashes of Hiroshima in her lungs”</p>
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<p><strong>Professor Fatemeh Keshavarz (University of Washington in St. Louis)</strong></p>
<p><strong>St. Louis, Missouri</strong></p>
<p><strong>April 29, 2008</strong></p>
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<p align="right"><a href="/id0904f67a80584955">>>Back to Cosmopolitan Iran: A Speaker and Film Series home</a></p>