Sam Yaziji
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Image by Franco Garcia from Pexels
Sam Yaziji is a poet from Miami, Florida. He works as the production editor for the print edition of Poetry International. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Zone 3 PressAntiphony, and Apocalypse Confidential, and his research has appeared in Pulse: The Journal of Science and Culture.
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The Death of an Arch

Once, your hand all arrayed in my hair, 
your wandering fingers were silent 
pilgrims to this place of Bedouin skull 
and brief Zenobian peace. In peace
I spent those months, my joy steeped
in your tealeaves lusher than black soil. 

Now, the blood-tarred cloudbloom sprays 
shattered colonnade stone across 
the sand, into the widening twilight 
between our palms. An image of Lethe 
if Lethe snaked through a desert littered 
with dead arches          if leaden water
              if marbled stars 

          Listen: