Today’s choice

Previous poems

Tamara Salih

 

 

 

Buried

That winter the snow kept rising,
a slow white wall climbing the windows,
each morning untouched,
the whole world muffled under it.
A hush so complete it felt like a hand
pressed gently over the mouth.

I pulled on my snow pants, my jacket.
No one home, I went outside.
Back then we wore our house keys
on shoelaces around our necks—
mine a fluorescent yellow
because I lost things.

I thought I was building an igloo,
though it was only a mound of snow
with a tunnel carved into its center.
Still, I imagined fur, seal oil,
families folded into warmth,
a fire licking the dark.

Inside my tunnel the snow leaned in,
heavy, watching through my mittens.
Sweat cooled against my wrists,
a thin film turning to ice.
For a moment I thought of resting—
the work had been hard,
the quiet so complete—
the ceiling gave way.
I took a breath.

Under that sudden weight
I wasn’t sure
I could get myself out.

 

Tamara Salih is a physician and writer. Her poetry has appeared in MedMic and Poet in Verse Journal. Her work explores memory, inheritance, and the body. She lives on the west coast of Canada near the Salish Sea.

Stuart Henson

Sometimes I’m surprised there’s light
in dark places, those corridors, those alleys
where you wouldn’t stray if you didn’t need

Julian Dobson

Street after street, ears bright to bass and tune
of two thudding feet, gradients of breathing. But rain

is brooding. Sparse headlights, ambient drone
of cars kissing tarmac, merging

Oliver Comins

Working the land on good days, after Easter,
people would hear the breaks occur at school,
children calling as they ran into the playground,
familiar skipping rhymes rising from the babble.

George Turner

Some days, the privilege of living isn’t enough.
The weight of the kettle is unbearable. You leave the teabag
forlorn in the mug, unpoured.