Anika Paris: California Poets Part 9, Three Poems

Anika Paris

December 22nd, 2025

California Poets: Part IX

Anika Paris

Three Poems

CHILL

There’s a bite in the air

in this desert coast terrain,

the weather as moody

as its people.

I wear scarves in June

carry a change of clothes

in case a fault line breaks its silence.

And while a sunny sky may provide

a backdrop for dreamers,

the elders of the earth, their

jagged bones in rocks and mountains,

point their noses toward heaven,

bend their backs against the sea,

reminding us Mother Nature

has a temper.

BOOBY TRAP

Now that he’s been throned,

and the world bows down

before their covetous king

in his jeweled crown of cruelty,

there is still the blue-footed booby

on the Galápagos Islands,

1,000 kilometers off the Ecuadorian coast,

where I will seek refuge —

dye my feet a turquoise hue,

and dance with my newfound friends.

I’ll be free — with salt on my lips,

sun in my eyes — the birds,

the wind, the patient hum of sea.

While on the other side of the world,

I once called home, remains bound by

an American charade — people costumed in

collars stitched too high, choking their throats,

feather-shrouded eyes blind to the periphery,

where the adorned feast and the plucked birds shiver

beneath the same indifferent stars — muted, hungry, and cold,

until even the wilderness forgets to speak.

SNOW DAYS IN THE SANDS OF BAGHDAD

The first time my grandfather sees snow

he shouts, “The moon is crumbling!”

Ancient secrets tumbling down over a city

that hasn’t seen white in more than a century.

He cups his hands the way one does for rain,

welcomes the soft descent,

each flake a frozen sigh,

gone before he can hold them.

The gift of winter

choosing him if only for a moment.

He is a dark Arab Jew,

a walking paradox

in a world that wants simple answers—

swarthy, handsome, Rudolph Valentino

they call him, with eyes

the color of desert dunes

and the Arabian Sea.

A British lilt is born to his voice

from long tutored afternoons—

French poetry, philosophy,

the art of Victorian letters,

a world far from Baghdad’s winding alleys,

where cardamom and cinnamon perfume the air,

merchants hammer copper bowls under the sun,

joy breaking itself against the stone.

This is the Baghdad he knows

before King Faisal’s reign reshapes the streets,

and the Jews are told: It’s time to leave.

Heskel-Ezra Moshi Peress

sails the boundless oceans—

across the Mediterranean,

the Tyrrhenian,

the Atlantic—

until New York’s Pier 86

greets him with a new beginning

carved from loss.

On Sundays, he played the oud,

its mother-of-pearl shimmering in afternoon light,

singing songs that rise and fall like prayers—

the music of his boyhood now locked in a minor key.

Grandpa dies before I can remember,

but asks that I carry the name of his mother,

Toba, who lives to be 104.

I sit on her lap and trace her face—

a map of landscapes shaped by time:

trenches, valleys, riverbeds

worn by wind and worry,

the sharp curve where her nose meets her chin.

She pinches my cheeks until they bloom red,

grinning wide as she cries,

“Abdalik, Abdalik!”

I remember my aunties Semeha and Simcha

dancing in the kitchen,

voices rising in ululations

that rattles the glass in the cupboard;

while music salts the air.

My uncles pretend not to notice,

stamp their feet,

snap their fingers

to the Doum tek ka doum tek.

Baghdad folded neatly

into the corners of their house in Queens.

My grandparents began our diaspora—

from Lodz, Baghdad, Vieques, and Ponce—

names that once meant nothing to me

but the shape of their sound.

I learn that each one holds

a lifetime of stories, 

carried in a single suitcase

after the war leaves them

half-hearted refugees

in search of freedom.

II

I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas—

not a city of silk tales,

but a land baked in the sun’s hard fist,

where heat rules the day

and snow never comes calling.

When we moved to the Midwest,

I met a magic I had never known.

November ice fairies

whirled their silver skirts across the sky,

rooftops rested beneath robes of pearl,

and a soft iridescent hush in the air.

Snow rose as high as my knees

the day I shaped the wings of an angel.

The cold across my back felt as if 

a thousand centipedes had dipped

their toes in ice cream.

My face the color of courage,

my nose, nearly numb,

my eyes narrowed against

the pale winter sun.

And unlike my grandfather,

I didn’t need an ocean’s passage

to find freedom.

I carried no weight of history,

I never wondered if the moon was crumbling.

I only knew—

I was in heaven.

Author Bio:

Anika Paris is a Los Angeles-based award-winning songwriter, poet, and author. Her collection Woven Voices (Scapegoat Press) — a multigenerational collaboration with her mother and grandmother — was nominated for the International Latin Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in numerous acclaimed anthologies, and she is honored to have her work included in NASA’s 2025 Lunar Codex Mission, a time capsule sent to the moon. With two music education books published by Hal Leonard, she teaches songwriting, lyric writing, and stage performance at UCLA Extension’s Creative Arts Program and through the GRAMMY Educational Program.