by Yash Seyedbagheri
Soft piano chords waft, Debussy haunting my consciousness from a playlist. The moon hangs over a plum-colored sky, darting around silver-gray clouds, the hills shrouded in shadows. What will the world be like now? Part of me conjures a place where a hug, a handshake, an I love you are daily parlance. Where fallen tears are brushed, where strangers are invited to barbeques. In this world, a smile is a precious commodity, a valued gift. Now the moon’s luminosity reminds me of an electronic screen. A screen glowing, beckoning. Read me, watch me, make contact with me, the screen calls. It is beckoning, offering seductive comfort, warning me that the world is being consumed by sickness. Will this be the new reality? Grunts and screens? Emoji speech? Texts? Will we live by the Zoom, perish by the Netflix?
The moon steals behind a silver cloud. Reemerges. It grows darker, the sky deepens into velvet, but I feel relief. Sometimes, not seeing is better.
Poet biography:
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. A native of Idaho, Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, and Ariel Chart, among others.
Old Water Rat Publishing 