October 8, 2023 - Rahil Najafabadi’s “Tomorrow is Hope”

When all the boats grow smaller and the river
takes them to another lover patient on the dock,
perhaps I’ll walk away and lay down on the grass.

The lover’s eyes are embroidered on the riverbank
and it’s spread of blooming remain. He awaits a bottle,
he doesn’t know an army of young people and dead fish

are coming instead. Maybe tomorrow, or years later,
that bottle will be pulled by someone who breaks it.
My letters have ended up torn, but never soaked

in nature’s ground for sorrow. My destiny was there,
caged in a small town or a free land under dictatorship.
I sprung out of the dark trees because I heard, flowers

might bloom. I walked on a future bouquet and ground zeroes,
but life was what escaped me––That love bottle eluded me.
Tomorrow is hope, not a promise, but a flower that may bloom.