Foreclosed

Where should I put my love?
Cast to November’s gray brick
the city sways
thick with the lowered shoulders of old lovers
going to work or for a pack of cigarettes
assembly lines of cold metal pulsing life
in streets that can't carry another.

Where should I put my love?
The sky saturated with the cumulus of tears
and particulates of dissolved promises;
armies of last words spiral
in exile with yellow leaves.

Where should I put my love?
The Rio too shallow now to carry it
far enough from you
and the ocean’s meniscus pounds at the gates
a mesh of plastic indifference
floats limp near the surface.

Where should I put the love
that colored your eyes
and painted my skin the shimmer of ripples
crashed through reefs of ribs and teeth
to that tidal space between our breath
resting sated, in all the soft, dark corners
of a home foreclosed.

Where should I put this love?
I am full from you and the undigested lingers
it is too big for me to swallow
too big for me to hold.


Yasmeen Najmi