POETRY

Three Poems

The Space Between



I live in a vase,

in the space left between the branches.

I wait for the light,

exactly where it falls—

at the bend of a branch

that seems to have broken.

What might have begun

as the most uneven shape

may turn out to be

the most elegant one.

I gather the withered petals,

for they hold

the fragrance they kept the longest.

What may seem a margin

could be a footnote—

revealing the whole equation.

The Window in Autumn



Each morning,

I opened the window to see if fall would fall to its end.

It leaves some leaves

suspended in the wind

until they fall,

while others are left to remain,

holding the echo

of the last fall.

The Road of Roses



I trace the road of roses

where the moon shreds her gleam

into micro-silvery beams

to feed the mouths of buds

with equal shining pieces.

They grow loved and nourished

under the silver mother,

extending their steps,

marching ahead

toward the stream.

And when they reach it,

they stop and look.

There she is,

the silver mother,

resting on the water,

her face trembling

between the waves.

They bend, petal by petal,

and see themselves

in her silver face.

They don't drink.

They only look.

Then, hungrily, they sip

the water that holds her beauty,

and stay beside the stream,

drinking and looking,

looking and drinking,

until her silver gleam

lives, petal-deep in each one.
E
About the Author Esraa Jalal Jawad Al-Gawhari College of Arts, University of Baghdad, Baghdad · Iraq

Esraa Jalal Jawad Al-Gawhari is an emerging poet writing in both Arabic and English, based in Baghdad, Iraq, where she teaches English literature, with a focus on Modern Drama, in the Department of English at the College of Arts, University of Baghdad. Her poems attend closely to quiet things — negative space, the turn of a season, the light on water — and find in them whole worlds. Her work explores memory, absence, and the quiet transformations of the everyday.

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