
Different Here
The sirens cry in two
pitches — high and
higher, inexhaustible. Even the night cannot
keep up, muffle
the wails, stifle
the brazen
loneliness.
The elevator takes
too long to reach
home. The temperature inside
rises across each of seven
stories. Garfunkel, Didion, Bradshaw— warn me
next time, about the elevators,
the heat. How far away
home can seem.
I have nothing left of the boy
who breathes San Francisco but
a threadbare T-shirt. The hole
in the right armpit grows, allergic
to the distance. I want to dip
my fingertips in glue, pinch it
tight, mend
the unfixable. There is no
sewing kit, no
Benadryl, for this.
I can barely taste
my mother’s short rib soup. It smells
like pizza, halal carts, someone else’s
cooking. Sometimes I feel
the cartilage of deep fried catfish stuck
in my back teeth. Perhaps the bones should stay,
keep my molars
company.
I cried
in a taxi
thinking about eating
burritos in my best
friend’s bed and
my mother singing
Billy Joel in her
Honda and the time we ate
ravioli on your balcony until
the sun set and the way
you sleep with a pillow
on your head, your arm
stacked over it like
an ice cream sandwich.
Things are different
here but the sirens
cry too, the elevator feels
the heat. I have found
pork congee and sausage
sticky rice, old
comforts, new
home.
