Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 2, Number 2. November 2019. ISSN: 2581-7094
Synesthesia
When I see you,
You’re a double six
dancing on a backgammon board:
Fate -
a delicious dish
that life hands to me
and I want to have my kanafeh*
sickeningly sweet,
and eat it too
all while playing this game
that tastes like the oranges
that hang over trees
in open- terraced coffee shops
feeling the music that
pulsates with my lungs
collapsing, in the clouds
of cigarette smoke.
*Kanafeh is a traditional
Palestinian dessert made with pastry or semolina, soaked in a lot of sweet,
sugar-based syrup, and typically layered with cheese, clotted cream or
nuts.
Coffee Dates
If she could have read
her fortune in a coffee cup
she would have seen the red flags
blaring in the winds
around the home
they could have built
together, now sticky webs
clinging to the pungency
of furniture polish
and shards of glass
from a mirror she
once saw herself in,
collecting dust and
waiting for the gentle
flick of a feather duster
to clear it all away
before the time sets
in to lay the tables
for a steaming cup
of tea, the clang of
stainless steel
against porcelain
for every spoonful
of sugar whitewashing
the bitter coffee stains
to reveal a swirl
of leaves drawing
pictures into the cup
like clouds in the sky –
a pattern she wished
she could not read
to see the red flags airing
out, with dirty laundry,
afresh.