by Steven Croft
No more open casements, no more moments at windows
Bring back the view of flowers and the love-burned orchards
Buildings now a punishment, knowing prisoners love windows
Talibs say: "Seeing women through windows is an obscene act"
Bring back the view of flowers and the love-burned orchards
To bodies now haram, faces now haram, our voices now haram
Taliban warn: "Seeing women as women is an obscene act"
Captive in darkness, dark-bitter roots till these walls come down
To bodies now haram, faces now haram, our voices now haram
At breast, our babies, throats filled with milk and woodsmoke
Captive in darkness, seeds for flowers, till these walls come down
No more subterranean, no more cavemouth blocked
At breast, our babies, throats filled by milk and woodsmoke
In the candlelit square of mirror, I hope myself, hopeless
No more subterranean, no more cavemouth blocked
But for the world I've stopped hoping, hope tombed long ago
In the candlelit ghosts of windows, I see myself hopeless
My pain bleeds down the panes, alone with my punishment
For the world will not see us, our hope tombed long ago
For the world will not see us, it stopped looking long ago
Steven Croft lives on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. His latest chapbook is At Home with the Dreamlike Earth (The Poetry Box, 2023). His work has appeared in Willawaw Journal, San Pedro River Review, So It Goes, Anti-Heroin Chic, The New Verse News, and other places, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
