The New Solitude
Strange how much I once loved solitude
when we were one another’s everyday.
Without you it’s a blown-up enterprise
featured in a map without a soul.
I’m unfolding it but can’t see where I am,
unfolding till I fill the vacant lot
with paper full of lines, each line a road,
each dot a house we lived in, where we went
to cuddle in our lair. Now streetlights glare
like strangers. Night birds disappear
far inside the dark leaves’ camouflage
and memory fogs reflections in a mirror.
Even when we both ran out of words
it wasn’t really loss. I devoted our last days
tending to your feet. They still were you
and maybe I was me still, holding them
as if at last I found a way to walk
with you on equal footing, all’s forgiven.
You spoke in flashes fathomed through your eyes.
I spent a lifetime finding what they meant.
Siham Karami is the author of To Love the River (Kelsay Books, 2018), and has work published in the Orison Anthology, EcoTone, AbleMuse, Think, Smartish Pace, and Grand Little Things, among others. Her awards include several Laureates’ prizes in the Maria W. Faust sonnet contests. She also enjoys long walks, nature photography, and the chaos of grandchildren.
Pulsebeat Poetry Journal 