We scraped my chairs across the floor,
and taped notes to the windows, open.
A decent day at last.
I plugged the griddle, poured the batter,
so you could watch my tadpole swim
the kitchen, magnified.
Carrying a Cuban mint,
a purple-stemmed, hopeful thing,
I followed from the bedroom to the porch and back,
wondering if that man loves you. With you.
We reached a time of affairs somehow,
and yesterday my fingers never smelled like onions.
We both smoke, but I carry mint.
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This is great, but I fell hard for the last stanza. I don't know what it is, maybe the We that sounds universal and nostalgic in the first line of that last stanza, or the connection of a more general and vague thought to something so specific as the smell of onions, or the last line that feels weightless and tender, but at the same time could carry a level of deep pathos...
ReplyDeleteI think I missed some of the depth that mint seems to take on - which could account for how i can't decide if the last line is funny and tender or quite sad - and i'm a bit spatially lost too. but the natural descriptions, like mint as a "purple-stemmed, hopeful thing" are beautiful.
i love how the speaker sounds so final/sure here. the statements have more emotional weight than the reader is given context, but i didn't mind it. there's also a strange type of compromise at the end with the onion line and the last line that reads so final. the speaker has distinguished herself against this partner (she carries the mint)--like the speaker has made the realization that she and this partner are done or have progressed as far as they can together.
ReplyDeletemy only suggestion would be to cut the second stanza b/c i think that will clear up some of the spatial loss that tim referred to. so we can see the speaker clearly move from the window to following her partner. and although i didn't mind the lack of context, the tadpole line was confusing and distracting.