Approaching the Third Anniversary of Your Death

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 rain, heat and humidity
push up brown clumps of mushrooms

across the yard. Everything in the underworld
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.