This time of year, monsoons and storms thicken
above the oceans on the mantle of El Niño
They are more brutal now, both in the country
where I was born and where you died, as well
as here on the southeastern coast, where hard
rain rises quickly in minutes, drowning cars
in the underpass. After the rain, heat and humidity
push up brown clumps of mushrooms
across the yard. Everything in the underground
links hands—from one season to another, unwilling
to let go. In my kitchen I pick up a dragonfruit from a bowl,
the same kind you bought in the market and brought
to my hotel room years ago; you cut it open, insisting
I eat it, right away. I have tried my best to live here,
far from the first world which held us inside a grove
of pine, inside the clearing you made for a garden
you’d dreamed of filling with roses and sweet flowering
vines. I promise that I am still trying to remember
everything. Sometimes when I catch a glimpse
in window glass, you give your face back to me.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
