That green glass bottle resting gently by your sink. A little mist of memories kissing the curve of your neck. You’re cooking in the kitchen. Cardamom. Cinnamon. Your braided belt is on the floor. The one I removed from the loops of your khaki gate. I’m at home in this garden. Please, oh please let me swing in the hammock until I’m old. Here with your majestic oak. Fingers in the coils of your moss. Ginger. Clove. You’re humming into the steam. I sit on the bruised leather sofa and remember how you once climbed up my second-story balcony. A bowl of berries and the cream of your teeth. Fenugreek. Everything fades. Gets pulled away. Coriander. Allspice. Let me taste the nutmeg once more. A small child stares at me because I’m in Target crying over a glass bottle and the man it contains. Paprika smoked into oblivion. Blooded ash on the edge of his drawing on your refrigerator. Inside, I’m rotting like a box of mushrooms you forgot. Behind the bowl of cherries. Cursed by your memory. Salt. Ground chilis.

He was lost in the second verse when a hand settled softly on his chest. & if he knew then what he knows now, he’d see it not as gentle. Not as sweet.

He would’ve leapt from the sill of his second-story window if only to feel less perishable.

He’d mind the gap when boarding the train. Calmly staring out the window at the syrup sunset & a longhorn-shaped hole. A matador, too slow.

But it was the love J didn’t feel when holding him that sent him screaming down the street. It wasn’t serene. It was wet with love-deth.

&
d e a f e n i n g .

The chorus hit like an ice pick when the white car pulled up to drag his body away. The berbere dream euthanized and preserved in a jar. On display for strangers to gawk.

I find this girl with frizzy hair whose braids play frames on dark skin fair.
Who scraps stuffed animals and loves scruff scraps.
Whose #1 Karaoke song meant:
'you can't use her phone' (it's at 0%)
who suits jumpsuits and rubber boots that jump up, in front, and on, to you.
who loses thoughts in white

    spaces between black lines braided, that
play between imagined frames, that
    frame the world in unspoken ways, that
    in gentle quiet movements make,

dark seem fair. I find the girl with black lipstick
whose soft eyes capture light, and shining lift,
you up high enough to realize
that it's your own skin glowing.

And if could be put at fault, for hands slightly cold to the touch --
it's that their mirrored surface has been trained to reflect all light back --
except, of course, for certain scraps
of once silver skin now painted black, warm enough
to keep on giving. And giving.

I find this girl of joy and pain,
whose each emotion fairly weighs
whose shadow visits unannounced to
bend and stretch the strands of light that start
to cast intricate patterns on my heart:

whose rubber boots jump in front
of you and twerk you into a corner
whose laugh pulls hooks
from the edges of your mouth
whose touch heals mental wounds
whose warmth I miss so much
whose image alone dopamine induces
whose kiss is again on my lips
who cooks with kohlrabi and Berbere.

I find this girl in the groggy eyes that confirm the morning,
in fingers driving through wet hair
in fleeting memories of dreams where something you long-
long to remember recedes into the night
and in every kindness on the commute, they sing her name
I hope I find this girl today.

Seblé tells me gursha, hand feeding
Follows the Ethiopian saying
those who eat from the same plate will not betray each other
Good, clean hands reach for small bowls
Containing the messy wonder
Of curried chicken, potatoes, beans, and lamb in berbere sauce
Injera strains to hold back lentils and spicy beef
Already spilling onto happy nervous fingers
Unaware that this meal will soon be difficult to swallow
We reach faithfully for connection
And towards wide-opened mouths