Aprils
you can roleplay as me a little
you will anyway, you can’t help it
through reflection I insert myself
into every window’s scene
from second-story I watched myself
flatten spirals into quilt patch grass
barefoot when I dared, when it was warm,
calling him under a pink cherry tree
do you have a fantasy like this?
love given
and never taken,
perfect, peregrine?
you’re something else,
he told me.
Jasmine Khaliq is the author of Somewhere Horses, winner of the Barrow Street Press Editors’ Prize, forthcoming April 2027. Her poetry is found in Best New Poets 2023, Passages North, Poet Lore, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from San Francisco State University and an MFA from University of Washington, Seattle. Currently, Jasmine is a Ph.D. Candidate in English and Creative Writing at the University of Utah.