Ilari Pass
Surprise
Last night I recited some poems to my cat to practice for my big reading and this morning she left a rabbit head beside my sandals, saying, So, we’re even now. Later in the morning, I weeded the garden and discovered a color gamut of vegetables and a crepe myrtle, only to stumble on a Belgian statue of some guy pissing all over them. I love the long beard of fronds on this palm tree growing outside my afternoon. I sit and watch the sun roll over my pink-painted toes, knees held in curves of my elbows.
This piece was previously published in SWWIM, September 2022.
What It Means to Be Beautiful
There is a planet with a moon
inside my water bottle. A breeze
makes small faces, expressions
of surprising love, I thank you.
Thank you for your nightly visits,
your gentle birdsong. Borrowed light alone
can’t make out in this house. This clutter—
the catch-all for my life. I feel
your glare of disapproval.
Come closer. The night
in your eye is a shade colder. Why
does everything have to be beautiful?
I don’t trust it. Let’s go
Ruin something.
This piece was previously published in ONE ART: A Journal of Poetry, June 2021.
On Following the Wrong God Home
—after Jenny George’s “A Childhood”
Having lost the hubris of prayer,
I feel no safety in the quietness
or in the darkness.
No place on earth.
Close the candle, quick
It’s too bright, I can’t see.
I forgot about the sun
how massive and calm,
sometimes crushing and on fire.
How pointlessly beautiful—the trees,
how peaceful the way they shade.
The graves and flowers alike listen
through the many ears of the grasses.
A hoopoe makes a hole in the air with its laugh,
the excitement of it vibrated in the flies.
You taught me there is nothing to be done.
The way dirt under this home can’t cry,
pretend nothing is delicate.
When Ilari isn't writing poetry or short stories, she recites Ayahs (verses) from the Quran and enjoys traveling with her family. A four-time Best of the Net nominee, her Greatest Hits appear or forthcoming in South Dakota Review, Cutleaf Journal, SWWIM Every Day, Pithead Chapel, Free State Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Paterson Literary Review, and others.
