the water becomes a village
where the ghost of the boy you were
first learned to swim.
you remember full moons
that lasted entire months,
swans who thought they were sparrows,
sparrows certain they were doves,
doves who flew north each winter
because they were always in search
of new songs.
you sing some of them now,
sounds that become words that become
a series of prayers meant not for gods
but for the sky that you now fly through,
even though your feet have never left the ground,
& even though the river that runs past your memory
keeps waiting for you to return home.
Kareem Tayyar’s work has appeared in publications including Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, and North Dakota Quarterly. His most recent book, Keats in San Francisco & Other Poems, was published in 2022 by Lily Poetry Review Books. His poem, “Visiting My Father in Iran,” received the 2020 Glenna Luschei Poetry Prize from Prairie Schooner, and his coming-of-age novel, The Prince of Orange County, received the 2020 Eric Hoffer Prize for Young Adult Fiction.