There is a tumor in my sacroiliac joint
and snowflakes in my coffee.
I’m in Iowa with the cats
and you’re in Pompeii.
You send a video: lizards rushing into limestone
which remind you of being a kid in Florida.
In Florida we memorized sonnets
while leaping around green anoles.
I’ve forgotten the poems.
Your black tights, even in that heat.
Mostly that’s what I remember.
It’s okay to say it straight.
Like: I’m scared, still,
that I might be dying.
Pomegranates growing from Pompeiian ash,
scandalizing propriety—
you send a picture and I do not say,
It just looks like a tree
or Another of God’s secrets
wasted on me.
Which part of the mind
gets you to the soul?
I am reading St. John of the Cross,
a character you might’ve put in a poem:
In the evening of life,
we will be judged on love alone.
Some petrified dog. Table bread,
a painted doorway.
You’ve been with me forever.
You know all my angels.
How could I say no to you,
taking off your earrings to kiss me?
Copyright © 2025 by Kaveh Akbar. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 16, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
