At The Offshore, It Took Two Tries

Poetry by Dania Aljabi
Photo by Callum Skelton

I write my best poems starved or angry,
my worst ones when I am both.
I noticed your ring finger the same night
the depth of my shoes sank into imprints
indented by my mother twenty-four years before. 

I roll my window down in day and night rides now,
I’ve been aching with thirst for the winter
since last June. At first, I blamed my
withering on skyscrapers, a lack of belonging,
noise pollution, these factors’ products

but by the time December started to thaw
in the calendar, I had only one person to blame
for her anger. At the offshore, it took two tries
to anchor the boat. If it matters, my feet are weary
as I gleam red in my room with hunger

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