I pray to the spilled dust in those ancient libraries
where I blinked and squinted
as I shed wishes from rows lining my eyelids.
I heard litanies in lashes
in every self in that hall of mirrors,
invoking spirits between pages.
I fold the papyrus into planes
shooting arrows without the bows.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 1.
Roula-Maria Dib is the director of the London Arts-Based Research Centre, founding editor of literary and arts journal, Indelible, and creative producer of literary event series, Indelible Evenings, as well as Psychreative. She is a holder of the UK Global Talent Visa as an award-winning literary scholar, poet, educator and editor; her debut poetry collection Simply Being was published by Chiron in 2021, and she is currently working on her second collection. Her book, Jungian Metaphor in Modernist Literature (Routledge, 2020) was shortlisted as a finalist for the IAJS book awards.
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