Two Poems
Syed Ali Zaidi
Late Night
The dime store is open at midnight,
filled with destitutes and dilettantes.
The store clerk lights another one of his cheap
cigarettes from the war. The flame
reminds him of a house fire that claimed the
lives of five children and a bandit who maintained,
till his last days, that he was the rightful heir to a
European fortune. In the corner of the store, young
college men make backdoor deals for small
tabs of faulty psychedelics. Outside, at the end of their night
shift, a congregation of sad clowns, smelling
of rotten tobacco, places bets on old horses that
never win. Across the street, you wait for a taxicab that
does not arrive. Your silhouette, the only sign of life in a
neighborhood of lonely souls. I am here with you,
to whisper into your small, delicate ears, to remind you
that it won’t always be like this.
Midnight (Tonight, my war is over)
The air gets cooler and I can no longer
dream. Outside my window, a magician
gone mad delivers a sermon to be heard
by no one. Inside my room, total silence.
The only sound, a patrol car going up and
down the street like a fleeing vagrant. The
mirror is dark and my face is gone. On my desk,
the page is getting darker and I can no longer see.
Above it, hangs a picture of a young boy with his
eyes fastened by pins. Downstairs, the war brides
are playing Russian roulette. If I listen carefully,
I can still hear my grandfather sitting silently in his
rocking chair writing letters to the dead.
Syed Ali Zaidi is from Monroe Township, New Jersey. He is a political science major and a creative writing minor. He graduated in May 2024, and his favorite poets include Charles Simic, Franz Wright, and Philip Levine.