my tentative tongue exploring the depths of new sounds
a world i am suddenly enveloped by
from hashish salons and dreadlocked dealers
hustlers providing whiskey, muttering "insh'allah" at tomorrow
silly men holler, following us
clicking, speaking every language they know
the welcomings and summonings that linger
between widespread warmth and tourist trap
languages sputtering stretching reaching for me
and i look at page and she smirks and we wonder
if they really think this will get them anywhere
then you called out in french, and i called back
see the thing is,
i can still taste your mother's sardine balls with sauce tomate
and smell the sage burning for Said's baby
i can still feel the cement floor of the first place we made love
and see the curve of your letters, but i don't remember your accent.
sometimes, i wrap your curls around my finger in my dreams
as if it were you, post-passage, in my world
if you had asked right then, i would have said yes
but as things go, we said farewell, struggling for understanding
in the transit parking lot of the ctm bus stop terminal
in a city whose name means, a picture
goodbyes never coming quite as easily
in the drudgery of reality as they do
flanked by helicopters, doused in rain in humphrey bogart movies
a romance blotted by fall's coming crispness
and with all of the arabic i've learned to date
i still don't know how to say, "i'm going to miss you"
so i said it in french with insh'allah's
trailing makeshift promises of a future
but my heart and mind were halfway to london by 5 o'clock that morning
and the thing is,
i don't know how many days i had been wearing that yellow dress when i touched down in new york city
and i don't know how many vodka rocks it took for me to cry in this country
but i still have stains in my journal from saying good-bye to a life
and a love that could have been annie hall transplendant but for circumstance.
so i've shaved my head again in defiance of who i was then
in defiance of us and you and your visceral residue
if you had asked right then, i would have said yes
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