Ghazals have always struck me as a literary picnic—a checkerboard blanket brimming with many different dishes composed of unique couplets. This modified, collaborative ghazal, with its ‘No-Thing-ness’ whimsicality served up alongside more serious stanzas, unpacks a memorable conversation for us all under the summer afternoon sun.
As son
& mother.
Welfare.
State surplus
peanut butter,
cheese, & smiles
for Mr. Sullivan’s
monthly inspection
to certify our poverty.
She boxed me—saving me, she said, for the wedding.
She shall be my centerpiece, stand next to the cake.
That was when she was twelve.
plucking my eyebrows
he likes me
he likes me not
chocolate fondue
double-dipping
the banana
their candy hearts —
I swallow more
sweet nothings
a single boa feather
floats in the coffee —
the morning after
Sometimes in airports I leave my body behind—
my old body, I mean. I step into the younger version,
the one where I flirt with just about anybody,
who cares, because nobody knows me—
One crisp Labor Day
when bands were playing in the distance
and the apples were red on our trees
and my husband had put his hands