By Tamoha Siddiqui
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Yesterday I heard the sound of colorful feet
to Indonesian beats, in the middle of Michigan:
white, black, brown, all were one
pitter-patter paces in a conference hall.
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You thought I wasn’t looking, but I was.
You were smiling a late November sun
stubborn in joy, fresh in giving;
a horizon broadening in deepening twilight.
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Your grey hairs picked up the song
The music bent down for a kiss
Immigrant spices dissolved
ladling a new tone on your tongue
As you threw up your pink arms
And danced
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Somewhere, your soul alighted;
Moonlight on a tulip
Wind on the sand dunes
Mellow in a melting of color,
You danced.
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Tamoha Siddiqui is a teacher-researcher and poet from Bangladesh. She’s a Fulbright awardee currently housed at Michigan State University as a graduate student. In 2018, Tamoha founded a bilingual poetry collective in Dhaka, working as a performer, organizer, and facilitator of local poetry shows and workshops. Furthermore, she debuted as a performance poetry artist in America in 2019 through events hosted by the The Poetry Room, Michigan. Her work has been highlighted in a number of Bangladeshi newspapers and anthologies.
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