Poem Without Love
You hurt my feelings
I say to the trees. You never
ask me how I am I whisper
to the breakfast taco, before
an indelicate but determined bite.
I miss you, I confront
the chair in the stranger’s yard.
Your strong + silly arms. Your sin-sturdy legs.
Why don’t you me I embroider
in green thread onto a yellow t-shirt
on sale (jk I don’t do that. I pur-
chase bananas and toothpaste). Oh,
is this where you go? I murmur
to my car, who has a secret name.
Can you hear me? I gesture
mutely to the parking lot. The trees
do not answer; they’re trees,
and know better.
Copyright © 2023 by Tarfia Faizullah. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 1, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I love this sweet and silly little poem.”
—Tarfia Faizullah
Tarfia Faizullah
Tarfia Faizullah was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Bangladeshi parents and raised in Texas.
Faizullah is the author of two poetry collections, Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf Press, 2018) and Seam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014). Her work was anthologized in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 3: Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019), edited by Fatimah Asghar and Safia Elhillo.