What to cook

You go to sleep

and on the other end of the world

I wake up, 

both wondering what to cook for the day.

I write poetry on the back

of my theory book on the Melian Dialogue

biting the ends of my pencil,

dreaming like granules of sugar

pelting on your Teflon pan in which you’ll later bake a pie

with bananas ripe.

Your worry lines will deepen

with the red markings on the report cards you have to sign,

with the lunch returned half eaten , soggy labor thrown into the sink,

with the sagging lose flesh around the waist, the electricity bills, the rings around the eyes, the dying

jasmine plant, the maid and the batter she steals.

I will match my words to his in obstinacy

over heated arguments on things I really don’t care,

saying intelligent things for him to hear,

hunting for methodologies to find myself

 that will satisfy the questioning panel,

remember the delayed period with the ensuing relief

the sticky warmth of the menstrual blood.

and in bed we are both as taught to be ,tigresses

ensnaring  our men who mark us with their semen,

unassured always, in fear or anticipation of his betrayal.

Like reflection in a river,

in apathy of the other side,

like following shadows in the dusk

our grammar intersect

 yet never blend into the other’s existence,

but if we ever meet,

I’ll hold your hands in mine and

you’ll brush off the mirrors at the ends of my eyes.

People would say of us “but she seemed so normal”,

And yet one day,

before sedations of normalcy injected into our veins

by different hands, different beds to rest, different clocks to time,

We’ll throw our hair back,

And run with the wind

in the direction of each other

knowing you exist,

knowing I exist,

knowing the embrace will never realize,

we’ll scream out our rage,

despair and disgust  then

happy and hysterical,

we’ll stop worrying about what to cook

for a day.