Poetry by Maryam Shadmehr
Is the gray city you left
to the mountains,
guarding it like a fort.
Its subways breathing
sweat on your neck.
Azhan–
echoing through narrow streets,
evaporating
into purple dusk.
#
Or is it the college town
you ended up in?
Faces of justice
screaming on its walls.
Remnants of
freedom of speech
on stake ends
scattered at its gate.
Where you always feel warm
because it stopped snowing years ago.
#
Maybe home
is at the top
of the waterfall
where you lay your cheek,
listen to the earth
crawl against your skin,
root yourself
in the trees
extending across the earth,
tangled in the universe.
#
Maybe home
is at the bottom
of the canyon
where water slaps your feet cold,
pebbles lodge between your toes.
You push against the current,
walls closing in,
finally feeling you belong.
A sliver of blue above,
may be home.
Maryam Shadmehr is an Iranian-American poet and storyteller. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Skylight 47 Poetry, Cider Press Review, River & South Review, andelsewhere. Maryam is the recipient of the Writing Scholarship at Left Margin LIT in Berkeley, CA. She can be found on https://maryamshadmehr.wordpress.com/ or on social media @maryamshadmehr.
Random Sample Review 