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Turkish Delights After This Gathering, You Walked Away

Updated: Jan 17, 2018

by Christopher Stolle



underneath your sun-drenched hijab,

I found an Arabian night begging

Scheherazade to finish her last story

your marzipan-colored skin melts

and reshapes love under my touch

an unraveling skyline for Gibran to mend

no one can hear you whisper what you know

about my fruitful prognostications—

prophesies to remain stuck in our throats

how I know who will reluctantly rescue us

but still destroy ancient omens without prejudice,

forcing us to draft new myths and fables

be honey to sweeten this bitter truth

be that unweathered keystone fossil to prove

love has always swelled in human bones

this love only we need to believe exists—

cherishing how it flows through this space

we carefully irrigated to nourish our fertility

we blame misunderstanding on cultural shifts—

faults that divide more than geography—

and we reconsider hand-me-down temptations

and you start singing this well-worn lullaby

my heart tries—and fails—to quickly translate

before you decide to rewrite its last verse

and extinguish our burgeoning couplet



Christopher Stolle’s poetry has appeared most recently or is forthcoming in the Tipton Poetry Journal, “Flying Island, Branches, “Indiana Voice Journal,” “Black Elephant,” “The Poetry Circus,” “Smeuse,” “The Gambler,” “1932 Quarterly,” “Brickplight,” “Medusa’s Laugh Press,” and “Sheepshead Review.” He works as an acquisitions and development editor for Penguin Random House, and he lives in Richmond, Indiana.



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