Spores

We grow loquat and Meyer Lemon in Oakland,

glossy fig and yellow and red plum that give

children in the flatlands something to do with summer,

climb trees, have fruit-wars in the backyard

where they don’t eat pulp, but smash it.

Children inhale spores through pipelines,

salt-spray of oceans,

even if they haven’t grown up in refugee camps

waiting for food packages,

they’ve watched parents fall in the street.

Women, could we,

living in caves and hills, in rubble of cities,

detained at border and checkpoint lines, rise up like a tree—

displace politics, religion, drugs, oil—

turn everything on its crown, deliver our children?

Cupid Does Dishes

Our rooms are joined through the bridge of a bathroom

where we make noise crossing over.

You slap on cologne to soften your jaw line,

I rinse whatever’s been stagnant;

separate ablutions until one of us tries the door.

It wasn’t always like this.

We use to sleep in the same stiff sheets.

If you rolled over to say “Oh,”

I said, “Ah.” We were in our vowels then,

a flatfish swimming from the same depths

departing a train station with crystal chandeliers

where nothing moved except us.

Later, you waved good-bye from the platform

never minding how often I went away,

only that I came back.

Now I hear you bang pots in soapy water.

You’ve already told me not to look at you

with your breathing tube and mask,

the box that has replaced me at your side in bed.