Over coffee, with evaporated milk
never met him
but i know my sister has his eyes
i know my mother holds his words
in her palms each morning
before she breathes in
cold sunlight
and walks out to greet me
pours our coffee and says,
Don’t ever take the shortcut for the sure way.
perhaps
i can hold him too
if i drink my coffee
with evaporated milk
if i walk a desert
if i am hungry
if i learn every lesson
and tell every story
and say only truth
and know no borders.
my grandmother carries him
in her lungs
so when she laughs
he enters the room,
savors every joy
kisses us like sunrise,
waves to us a goodbye
like a song.
Sloan Asakura is a poet and memoirist originally from Los Angeles, now braving the Pacific Northwest. In their free time, Sloan can be found cooking comfort food, collecting papillons, and obsessively cleaning their bathroom. Their work has been previously published in Rigorous and Jeopardy Magazine.
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