Get Out and Stay
This gloomy nocturne
Plays only for me.
I want you to hear it,
But I am too shy to share.
Being meek
Makes me angry.
Yes, the piano plays
While the notes give form
To the violently white keyboard
gnashing at one of us,
And I wrap it around my table.
My own personal
Parapet.
You lean against the alabaster wall,
Tapping your fingers to a different tune.
I wish you would reach out
And touch me.
Just a bit further,
A bit further.
Are you curious?
Or afraid of the truth?
I think I know the answer,
But I will believe
The other.
In twenty years
With someone
Who loves me less,
I’ll say
There was never a question at all.
The white moonlight
Pours through one window
while I sit by the other glass.
A little lamp
Illuminates all I want to see.
Jaundiced glow
Infusing my surroundings.
Enters me.
I exhale it back.
You dance right here,
Over there,
For the face of the happy moon.
I wish it would smile at me
As I close the blinds.
I have to plug my ears
Or turn this song louder
So that I can think clearly.
The keys are finally
Worn down,
Revealing
Mulberry underneath.
I have to finish building this room
Where it’s always cramped
And lonely
And this lemony wallpaper
Keeps peeling.
I have to lock the doors
And no matter what,
Keep you out.
I wish you were here.
• • •
Mazi Kazemi is an assistant professor of finance at Arizona State University. His fiction has appeared in the 34th Parallel, Defenestration, the Clare Market Review, and other venues. This is his first published poem.