Poetry from Hari B Parisi

Photo: Ashim D Silva

Winter in Los Angeles

A block from home
I decide to change
my name, press the walk
button, cross over
to the other
side of the street,
wish I had a friend
to discuss whatever
we might discuss,
a dog
tugging the leash.
I flinch
from the gunning
of cars, swerve
the leaf blower.
At the sidewalk’s edge,
camellias bloom.
.

.
Hari B Parisi (formerly Hari Bhajan Khalsa) lives in Los Angeles with her husband, working as a partner in their healing center. She is the author of three books of poems, most recently She Speaks to the Birds at Night While They Sleep, winner of the 2020 Tebot Bach Clockwise Chapbook Contest. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications and are forthcoming in New Plains Review, Qu Literary Magazine and New York Quarterly. Her website is haribpoet.com.