KAREEM TAYYAR

Soccer at Night, My Father and I

Every time he kicked the ball I was surprised that it ever came down,
Each one a moonshot,
A black-and-white rainbow,
A wild bird dizzy with joy over what its body was capable of.

After each kick he would watch the ball’s arc,
The way an astronomer might look at the stars,
Galileo searching for new constellations to name,
Copernicus silent with wonder at the new truths the sky had revealed.

Upon Seeing a Basho Haiku While Walking Through Los Angeles

He’d love this, I think.
A poem of his painted onto the side of a building on the edge of Japantown,
Floating in the golden sky of the mural,
A woman dreaming upside down beside his lyrics like the muse who never left him,
Her body surrounded by falling lanterns shining like inverted stars,
Close enough for us to touch.

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