2021

In a slow motion video,                my sneezing face
                           is an abyss                    seized by light and water.
                                      It’s a turning point
for my shutterbug friend’s                        confidence. I loosen
my shoulders
                                to hug him tight,    feel the nest of his ribs
                                          humming                                the hope

of a post-lockdown
world. I am happy to contribute         to the renaissance
of his creative juices,              just like I was                 to forge

my father’s signature              to send you a prescription,
the antibiotic working like a charm,                coaxing every night

the frosty orchard of your sore throat                  into slow bloom,
the seductive fruit                                of your words
yellowing by the minute.

                       Your sickness aside, there is nothing I fear more
                       than my criticism of something
                       just because that something                   isn’t like me.

My father cusses over the phone              and in anger, I spit
at the wild berries
                                         imploring my paralyzed mouth.
In the moments just after anger, my tongue, winged and arrowed,
                  is grateful to be rooted                 to the floor of the mouth
where most of my longing lives,                        sharing space
with a few syllables
                                          of prayer I have somehow not forgotten.

Unexpressed feelings are unforgettable, says a poet
in a Tarkovsky movie, the dense fog
                                           of his liquored breath
settling over a swamp                              inside a derelict church.

                         Where’s the altar       where desire burns?
                         Inside the chest        or back of the throat?

                                      Across the country,
                                                                   ash makes small anthills

of mercy overlooking pools of grief,
the riverbeds speckled            with shallow graves,
                                                     rivers swollen                with bones.

Time has stopped                            and yet there’s no time to process.

Cumulous clouds                   of untimely monsoon

foam into elephants                         inside my hallucinating mouth.
                                                                                           I wake

with chills for a month, start praying
                           to a layer of exposed brickwork
                                                  in a corner of my room’s wall.
During an evening storm, windows
                                                            of the city’s apartments spill
                            long shadow,
                                             dark wind.
I light a candle and its legacy
                                                      is the memory of your face.
In the center of the flame, lips
                                                                                    part.

I can’t tell if you’re smiling.

Do you want to say something?

Do you want me to say something?