Masterpiece pumpkin, your shirt still smells like you
In the corner of memories, those Hawaiian print patterns on your
Little outfit set, purple and white and sticky
Pale as the rice in your bowl
As the chop sticks that leaned in pans
As the acid erosion eating at my early teeth
After leechee fruit cubes in tiny gelatin packages, handed to me
I can touch your doll clothes in the lost and found of my mind,
Taste the air he made salty by your tiny tears
When the boy mocked your words, name
Did he ever grow up knowing
You were the phoenix of this desert?
That the sun set for you, dear girl,
And that summer you left, you took the warmth
Did he feel it? Did he know?
That we wrote letters in bubble handwriting
On milky blue lines with glittered gel colors
And that our hands met words to speak when we could not
That the moon belonged to Hawaiian purple with the slender frame
And big brawny me wrapped in black vinyl jacket year-round?
I’ll tell him, sweet haze, that we never forgot to be children,
That we grew up in the heart of eleven years
And never apart though separate,
You with your red and gold new-year packets
With your sesame fish spine snacks and canned corn,
Rising above the dry heat into a bird,
I’ll never let those tears put out
your flame before you could become, again
above photo credit: Tess Coats
