Convivencia

You returned in the Fall
of my 40th year
Armed with an early frost
And a box of 500-year-old plums
The forbidden fruits of our common ancestry
Blurred the boundaries of our worlds

If I fed you my jam with horno bread
Would you recognize the explosion of purple
cryogenically preserved in the layers
of a Buffalo winter?
The firm, green pucker of impending womanhood
Would it taste like me?

Tormented by your freeze-thaw
I broke the silence
I don’t remember your few, soft words that night
Only how they erupted in beautiful volcanic violence
Hurled fiberoptically through flaming canyons
Slamming into sandstone, stealing my breath
from the river where I hibernate beneath mud and snow
Frozen stalagmites dripping lethargically
into swirling debris

Your voice dove deep into my bed
Liberated geothermal streams
That nibbled the cold from below
Gently exposed fractals and fractures through icy lenses
Warm currents shaped my face
Brushed away leaves and lost years
Dendritic fingers carved cliffs and valleys

The genesis of Spring and tears form vegas
The thick grass of your chest
Birthing sparrows and love again
But your tongue could never speak of love
It just pushed it deep inside of me
A seed that suffocates in the darkness of womb
But never dies

I want you to reconstitute me
With caldera endurance and ancient fire
Lava burning rifts into thighs
Following the Silk Road to white sheets
And in our movement
Time leaves nothing but ash and Pele’s tears
And your eyes
The blue Spanish sky.

Yasmeen Najmi

© 2010 Yasmeen Najmi