Porkchops and Parsnip Fig Hash
Tonight as I back my car down the awkwardly
long driveway on the
side of your aunt's charming Chicago
bungalow, paranoid
about keeping the wheel straight
and not crushing the magnolias and,
as you warned me, not
crashing into the brick siding
of this strange woman's house at
1 am,
the singing crickets
and the chill creeping into the night air
as we round out September
are what convince me to pull
off to the curb of this sidestreet,
stop my car, and write this poem.
The taste of your tea
is lingering on my tongue.
I finished the last gulps right before I left,
because, I had let it go cold
and you gave me shit
for not finishing my
drink. In 2 months
you are leaving for Europe,
you are going to educate women
in the mountains of Kosovo,
to “increase the employability
of women and youths”
in a corner of the world where
they have electricity, you say,
but in some parts it's “like a luxury.”
“Kosovo is a young country,”
you tell me. “They're still getting over
the whole ‘women don't work' thing.”
You are going to teach them to think
about themselves in the context of freedom,
how to know that they can work,
and be a human instead of
breeding stock, an automatic maid,
a bargaining chip, a man's property.
You'll do this with whatever resources
you find there, for essentially no money,
and then move on
to another mission
in another part of the world.
But tonight,
you made me
porkchops
with a parsnip hash,
carrots and dried figs,
balsamic vinegar and onion glaze,
pumpkin rooibos tea in
big, wide mugs.
You showed me your favorite
Shakespeare film
and kissed me
deep, during what you said
were “the slow parts.”
Your curly hair is still the
golden thickets
growing by the
highways of the sun.
Your kisses are still
smooth river rocks,
sophisticated flavors,
the alleyways of ancient towns.
But this moment is already dissolving,
like cotton candy
in afternoon rain.
You are always
one more continent
away.
This is what makes me happiest,
when I get to remember the way
you held the big saucepan two-handed,
how you bunched up a dish towel
to protect your hands from the heat
as you poured on the glaze,
and the hungry smile in your eyes
when I got your attention to
kiss you as you were
walking to the pantry—
and these moments are what will hurt the most,
make me disappear,
a child in a labyrinth,
a mosquito
erased by the
vortex of a
storm.