I Wonder in the Morning

                                                                         image by Alexas_Fotos

Clean, my skin bright
with clean, tingling
from the hot shower.
A shawl of clean rising from my shoulders,
my feet happy-clean in their slippers.

And I think of the woman in Afghanistan
not allowed to leave her house
for water to wash,
how sticky her skin must feel
beneath the voluminous burqa.

I drink my morning coffee
hot and perfect to my liking.
I wonder what the boy
crouching in the corner of a tent in Gaza
dreams of drinking.

They say we’re all connected.
They say the woman and the boy
and I are cells in a unified field,
and that’s why we can touch.
And that is why we must.

I lend my small awareness to their suffering.
The girl in Sudan who is running for her life
cannot stop to hear my reparation song.
But I can stop to hum her
my little morning pleasures.

©Susa Silvermarie 2026