My father says
the peppers need more sun.
This is somehow
about my mother.
The balcony smelled like soil and cigarettes.
He kept looking at the plants
instead of me.
Men from our part of the world
treat eye contact
like a border crossing.
Later, at home,
I cut red peppers slowly
for a salad I wasn’t hungry for.
Outside, rain.
Of course.
Everything important in my family
eventually becomes weather.
I suddenly remembered my mother
standing barefoot in the kitchen
telling me not to refrigerate tomatoes.
As if love could survive
through small correct instructions.
The knife,
the cutting board,
the quiet apartment.
I understood my father completely then.
Not verbally.
Worse.