Perhaps to see
the world’s blur
in a sharper blur
is what amazes me.
And I favor life
through a gloomy set
of fellow mist,
through my gaze—
sick and untamed.
What use would it be
to look in a clearer voice—
would I hear you
fair and undisturbed—
would I get your tears—
would I be candid with you?
I shall stay ignorant of faces
and I am yet to behold
the veil behind the veil.
I am yet to notice
white spruce,
its ever-silver leaves—
though I can still distinguish
other trees’ brown
from their red,
from yellow,
and zillions of oranges.
The fruit lingers
only for one long minute
whether you are ready
to grasp the moment
or the fruit—
ready to be witnessed
and to fall
for one last stroke
on your cloaked earth.
Ayşe TekşenAyşe Tekşen lives in Ankara, Turkey where she works as a research assistant at the Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University. Her work has been included in Gravel, After the Pause, The Write Launch, Uut Poetry, The Fiction Pool, What Rough Beast, Scarlet Leaf Review, Seshat, Neologism Poetry Journal, Anapest, Red Weather, Ohio Edit, SWWIM Every Day, The Paragon Journal, Arcturus, Constellations, the Same, The Mystic Blue Review, Jaffat El Aqlam, Brickplight, Willow, Fearsome Critters, Susan, The Broke Bohemian, The Remembered Arts Journal, Terror House Magazine, Shoe Music Press, Havik: Las Positas College Anthology, Deep Overstock, Lavender Review, Voice of Eve, The Courtship of Winds, Mojave Heart Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Tipton Poetry Journal, Rigorous, Rabid Oak, the Thieving Magpie, and Headway Quarterly. Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Straylight, The Roadrunner Review, and Helen Literary Magazine.
