For the boy child sitting in the front row at the book fair

The flower is lonely

look how it weeps

look how the stone edge

precipice of the tips

of the tears form an iceberg

It’s tired of the night

its polarities

its dimensions

its ghosts

The flower finds the day empty

and filled with longing

solitude 

the interloper, regret

the people are as depressing 

as rain and winter light

The time to have children is over

I eat bread and cheese

for one

The light dims

Another night is over

And I am left to think

of our separation

the much younger

(than I am now)

woman in your life

I think of how fragile 

the word “ceasefire” is

“novelist”

and I come up for air

reach for memory

and all of its tenderness

What remains is this

a sickly father

the traits of manic depression

hope

Yes, hope

all of its blessed assurance

I find faith in a clock

The spaghetti of time

The years

turn into mist

while I listen 

to a poem by Akhmatova

I am not the only woman

who has felt alone

who has been rejected by a man

and became a poet

instead of a mother.

Your loveliness doesn’t hurt me anymore

Give me Marina Tsetaeva

Give me Karin Boyes

Give me Petya Dubarova

I sent you a poem

You did not respond

I told you I would always 

carry your heart with me

But it meant absolutely 

nothing to you

Europe has carried you away

but all it has given me

is quiet despair

The kind of desperation

of no longer having you in my life

You never read any of my books

You turn to Jhumpa Lahiri instead

Mohsin Hamid

while I have Fatima Sydow 

for courage

a fridge tart on the table

that doesn’t quite make up

for your absence

Dear Sister, I’m sorry

I’m sorry for what I said

or did not say

or what I did

in childhood

in youth

Just know this

I will always 

carry your heart

with me

and the scars

you have given me

for an eternity.