Solstice Pantoum

We roam but see nothing of the moss-colored divine 
while noon throws a redwood shadow on the plaza.  
On the screen: two sallow-skinned children embrace. 
Their bodies say, fight; their bodies say, hide. 

While noon throws a redwood shadow on the plaza; 
summer flecks by, and you are almost gone.   
Your body says, fight; your body says, hide.  
You speak to a girl in the wind-swept garden.

Summer flecks by, and you are almost gone. 
You donate your secret to June’s long days. 
You speak to a girl in the wind-swept garden. 
The color of my suffering is green unaware.

You donate your secret to June’s long days. 
I retrieve my guilt and confess it to the sky.  
The color of my suffering is green. Unaware,  
you touch me like sunset on granite.

I retrieve my guilt & confess it to the sky.  
This solstice may be the end of me, I say. 
You touch me like sunset on granite. 
Sometimes, I giggle at the drama of our age.

This solstice may be the end of me, I say. 
Your eyes turn Maine Coon, choked, lionlike. 
Sometimes, I giggle at the drama of our age.  
Whose unmooring prowls in us now?

Your eyes turn Maine Coon, choked, lionlike. 
Why do we short the long of desire? 
Whose unmooring prowls in us now? 
We roam but see nothing of the moss-colored divine.  

Credit

Copyright © 2025 by Deema K. Shehabi. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 31, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets. 

About this Poem

“I wrote this the summer before my youngest son started college. I wanted to commemorate that moment through the pantoum, which seemed like a natural form for a poem of filling, emptying, and infinite renewals—those hypnotizing cycles that constitute motherhood.”
—Deema K. Shehabi