Bruise-tremor of language—
a book of lush silences
inhaled, held breath
You don’t know where they came from only that they’re here now, and the email from the arborist says kill kill kill…
Read More
Your mother has been here for many years,
or at least it feels that way.
She does the necessary things without acknowledgement,
as if it is part of her training.
Says, a prayer is still a prayer even
if it only finds your lips while you
a reseized in pain, or need, or
quiet desperation, says,
make a mosque of this body,
Tonight, May is a sweet pink
grapefruit, sliced in half.
Squeezed from clouds, sticky
rain tangos down my bare legs
and pools in my heels
like bunched socks.
I begin to break my mother’s heart the day I leave Zimbabwe on an unseasonably cold August day, brown leaves raining down from the Msasa trees.
Read More
The Manananggal crouches in my womb, counting my little eggs as if they were hers for breakfast.
She doesn’t like me and I don’t like her, but we are cursed to inhabit each other.
![Al-Waqi'ah [56:27]: before touching a lover by Qurat Dar](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5510a228e4b0519d684008a9/1679620862150-7RQD4HLIXLSFXIU9RKLP/pexels-raphael-brasileiro-1686944.jpg)
You imagine fingers forgetting
themselves, dexterity disappearing,
a sense numbing itself out of shame,
the hailstorm
the steaming bath tub
dad walked me home
and we got caught
big hail fist balls big dark
on the evening of Lunar New Year’s eve,
a petal of dishes sit in the center.
guazi fish dipped in diced onions and soy sauce,
barbeque roast pork, bok choy in garlic,
and my mother’s signature dish—