Iman Monfopa Kone’s poem was a finalist for the 2025 Nassau Weekly Poetry Competition. 

On Sunday, go to the Pond and be selfish 

there you will find that there is no great mystery.

and even though this morning, a man buried his brother,

you weep for a lover who wouldn’t love you back.

you weep for yourself alone.

it is from a heated room that comes the dread of winter

– for loneliness grows deeper at sundown and

living is more difficult in the silences that follow.

there is no great mystery and you already know the way,

to the solitary bench near the edge of the water.

you celebrate its stillness, remark on the neutrality

of the wind’s caress,

imagine the tall weeds are your friends, 

that the falling leaves say hello,

that you already know the way.

you used to sob so hard the whole house trembled,

and still no one noticed.

go on then, closer to the edge

to stare into the eyes of

this weird misshapen thing.

in the pond’s surface:

you do not find your mother,

you do not find your father,

There is no great mastery.

There is no true wisdom in the trees,

No poetry in the sluggish air still damp from last night’s rain.

You have come to the pond to be selfish

And so the world shall stop its rapid spinning

And its cruel splintering 

To be selfish with you–

There, it is done you have cried

And you are so sorry

And the world is sorry too.

For there it is, still, waiting

Best to look away.