Remembrance
The sun sleeps
In the dirt, here.
I am less smoke, more steam,
The refreshing kind of bitter.
In the dirt, here,
We’ll plant our feet and leave.
The refreshing kind of bitter
Lives in my coffee now.
A tiny, smiling Death,
The sun sleeps.
I am still here, still now;
I am less smoke, more steam.
We’ll plant our feet and leave.
A tiny, smiling Death
Lives in my coffee now,
I am still here, still now.

Mariam Ahmed is a Californian poet. She has her Bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in Sociology from UC Davis and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Poetry from San Diego State University. As a Pakistani-born American raised in the Bay Area and Folsom, CA, Mariam is a first generation scholar and the first woman in her family to attend college. She is a certified Poet-Teacher with California Poets in the Schools, and her work has been published by many literary journals and presses, including “Poetry International,” “The Los Angeles Review,” “The Elevation Review,” “Flint Hills Review,” “Progenitor Art and Literary Journal,” “Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Art & Poetry,” and elsewhere. In addition to writing and teaching, Mariam enjoys meditating and exploring beaches.
Image: К.Артём.1, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons