On the Shelf by Laura Foley

It’s made of green plastic but
thick and heavy, translucent,
poured into a mold.

Seated in lotus, palms resting upward,
hair in little curls like a cap,
ears hanging low.

He sits with spine erect
and looks quiet
and content.

His presence reminds me
to breathe in,
breathe out,

even in the midst of it.
Last week, when someone crashed
into my car

as I drove by,
I thought of him—
the Buddha.

When the other driver and I
stood waiting for the police—
neither of us hurt—

she kept saying she was sorry,
distracted—
she’s from Iran,

sick with worry
for her mother.

I tell her I’ve been to Isfahan—
we loved the mosques.

Now we’re bombing
her home country.

How we faced each other, then,
and hugged,
on the sidewalk in the sun,

between heaps of dirty,
melting snow.



Laura Foley is the author of, most recently, Sister in a Different Movie (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions April 2026) and Ice Cream for Lunch (The Poetry Box). She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, Common Good Books Poetry Prize, Poetry Box Editor's Choice Chapbook Award, Bisexual Book Award, and others. Her work has been widely published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, American Life in Poetry, and included in anthologies such as How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence. She holds graduate degrees in Literature from Columbia University, and lives with her wife on the steep banks of the Connecticut River in New Hampshire.