Cardamom in my coffee

 

Cardamom in my coffee

subtle and fragrant

blood in my hair

wet and invisible against the dark brown

nails in my teeth

torn and spat out again

words on my page

written and erased

 

here and not here

there and not there

palindromes crescendo and fade

into each other,

into the silence

perhaps silence is the truest wit?

 

Fringes of the bright peacock feather

my mother placed in my room, for luck

splay out on the wall behind a fold of ochre-patterned curtain

and reach for my grandmother’s

mock-exasperated face.

 

I square my shoulders

straighten my wrists

and prepare for the worst.

 

 

– VB April 11^th, 2006