if I had fallen in love
if I had fallen in love that summer
in my little slip dresses and boots the color of blood,
lips a bite of strawberry and hair a wild story,
I might have been beautiful,
the tangerine sun setting everywhere I looked,
the glassy water doubling the spectacle,
at its center, I might have been just as vivid.
I might have learned that the mountains
were an amalgamation of roots
growing into each other
like a dust bunny or tumbleweed
just under the dirt, the trees
growing into more trees
like a constellation twinkling, unseen.
& if the mosquitoes hadn’t gorged
on my ankles so ruthlessly
I might have kissed that boy
& I might have regretted it
I might have swallowed
that pickleback shot
& I might have thrown up
I might have lived a life or two
instead of counting steps in the parking lot,
between the rust-colored cars,
missing you.
everything here has meaning
v1.
everything here has meaning:
parking in reverse the milkshakes
they don’t sell at the diner anymore
the sun spotlighting his bed
in the afternoon the cat
in the plastic bag the dog barking
at dusk drinking a yellow dress
the early spring daffodils and
early fall sunflowers (though different
they both feed off sunshine and city soil)
i’m wearing a leather collar and a red
raincoat in March or in October the seasons
of delight or disorder monsoons or sleet
you find me at the gate lost but for
my little brown-eyed deer-headed chihuahua
we twined the same storyline but
in different scintillating tapestries (& though
colorful they both remain incomplete)
last weekend i was just trying to tell you
you deserve more
& it came out –
v2.
watch me, like a wave, retreat
among late summer sunflowers
a year later you tell me in our final conversation
there was no justice in your unaddressed questions
I think about you sometimes – what is your name these days?
do you still live half an hour away? do you have your cat back?
if I could guarantee your answers I would ask
but I don’t even have your number anymore
✶
everything here has meaning:
the faded rose carpet the lilac chair
the sun relentless through the blinds
the sleet and fog blanket pulled up to his chin
the little dog licking my feet in the morning
the tulips and the daffodils and later the roses
and even later the petunias, the
hydrangeas and the sunflowers
it’s finally the season of delight
having sped through the season of disorder
in front of the peonies he kisses my cheek
& we walk our little brown-eyed
deer-headed chihuahua around the block
his hair a fire like the sun
my lips a bite of strawberry
✶✶✶✶
Rabha Ashry is Egyptian, by way of Abu Dhabi, and based in Chicago. She has a Bachelor of Arts from New York University Abu Dhabi, and an MFA in Writing from School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. The recipient of the Brunel International Poetry Prize 2020, she is the author of chapbooks Loving the Alien and Grief and Ecstasy. She currently teaches poetry and essay writing at DePaul University while writing about home, exile, the diaspora, and living between languages.
✶
Charles J. March III is a quasi-writer, pseudo-musician, and counterfeit-artist currently living in California. His pieces have appeared in such places as the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, in the toilet, and in the trash. Last year he poured his blood, sweat, and tears into Blood Tree Literature’s hybrid contest, and wound up winning third place. PBS once contacted him regarding his work, but it didn’t pan out.
✶
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