i tell you again, we’ve been sitting outside for too long.
the ink of night has seeped into the edges of the sky,
and the porch lamp is the only thing illuminating our
faces, damp from exhaustion and the sweltering heat today.
soft cups of Kashmiri tea, cloudy and pinked with saffron
sit patiently by our knees. we’ve neglected them all evening.
and how can we not? when the air is so much sweeter at the
back of my throat, where I know you are waiting,
where my dupatta keeps slipping from. in the summer
everything feels louder because it can feel real.
this, the most achingly perfect thing that lies in our
mouths, it can feel real. don’t tell me you need to go home
just yet, not until i’m done. ammi will stay up and wait,
the sun will come back, you will pretend our chai was never
covered by the gluey lipgloss holding our lips together. it’s okay for us
to forget ourselves until the clouds remind us. wait for me, for a
minute, a year. i’ll let the dried grass remember the form
of your back, while i carve the soil into something i can remember.
Poem by Angbeen Abbas
