Rumi
In a dream I asked him
What can I do
if I can’t change it
And he pointed
to the graves
and whispered witness it
Copyright © 2026 Joseph Fasano. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
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For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper
Now I let it fall back
in the grasses.
I hear you. I know
this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious
on this earth.
But what are you trying
to be free of?
The living? The miraculous
task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.
2023
Odysseus
Think of the moment before the moment.
Before recognition. Before the nurse saw
the boar’s scar coursing down his thigh
where the world had first entered him
in the forests of childhood. Before
Penelope. Before his battle for her heart.
Think of his moment alone on the beach,
his sailors running up to the village
where girls stood wringing spices
from their hair. Think of the gods saying to him
you do not have to praise ruin anymore;
you do not have to praise what is lost.
How you imagine him is how you enter things.
2018
Instructions for Having a Soul
Take it out in the rain sometimes.
It has vast, invisible wings that gather dirt
and need rinsing.
When it tries to kill you
that is because you've forgotten
to let it look into someone's eyes
for longer than a minute.
It needs that the way a bee needs nectar
in the early morning dew.