There is Nothing Left but the Bruised Sky
By Shakiba Hashemi
home is where you keep your memories
every laughter and every sigh
reverberates
between its solid blank walls
you can retrace the first steps
of your baby brother in the hallway
and smell the aroma of your grandmother’s felafel
in the air
ghosts of happy days
occupy
every damp corner
of your house
and when bombs obliterate all the buildings
around you
and the blood trail
maps the borders of your town
when there is no blue dome left
for the weary doves
to land on
and no minaret
for the wandering clouds to hover above
when there is nothing left
but the bruised sky
and your house burns in an eternal inferno
your memories
will scatter with the wind
like fairy dust
and settle
somewhere far away
on the sun-kissed branches
of an olive tree
Shakiba Hashemi is an Iranian-American poet, artist and teacher living in Southern California. She holds a BFA in Drawing and Painting from Laguna College of Art and Design. She is a winner of 2023 Best of the Net Award and Philadelphia Stories Editor’s Choice Award. She is the author of the chapbook “Murmur” published in 2023 by Word Poetry. She has been nominated for Pushcart Prize and her work has appeared in The New York Quarterly, Atlanta Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Ibbetson Street Magazine, The Indianapolis Review, I-70 Review, Cream City Review, The Summerset Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, Collateral, The Inflectionist Review and elsewhere.