My daughter has eyes like Brazilian coffee So dark that when she looks upward they reflect the sky. “Oh look!” they say, “Her eyes are turning blue! How wonderful!” “Mmmm…” I say. Not really. Her hair began a dark cloud and is brightening to the sunny brown of my childhood. “Oh look!” they say, “She’s …
Swisschard
The seeds sat mixed among a display of ordinary local vegetables. Taste of my homeland summers I clutched them to my heart, hand-carried them to the register, and brought them home from that distant supermarket. I hoard each seed. I’ll probably never get any more. We are kindred souls, my swisschard and I. Not born …
Pledge
I pledge allegiance to the faults in my unified human state and to the humility for which they stand one person flawed under god with beauty and simplicity for all.
Root Survival
Yucca Mandioca Cassava Poetry in vowels. Survival in a root. Hairy, fibrous, dirty layer on the outside, White gold inside. Tall and scraggly on top. You are the garden’s nerdy child. Blown down by the your bones snap at the slightest wind, slightest movement, but when you touch the ground each part of you begins …
Brazilian Wedding
A family of sweeping eyebrows. Men wearing fuzzy caterpillars Women wearing winged seagulls. Outdoor canopy borrowed, resuscitated from some past political event. National beer flowing free in cups and across tablecloths. Band playing bouncing beats of forro from the improvised stage– neither expert nor always melodic but always rhythmic and enthusiastic. Red, Brazilian mud grabbing …
Coffee
is served black, dark sweet and hot sweet grounds from the farmer’s hand mashed, mixed with sugar boiled hot strained, steaming sweet syrup warmed in a carafe always waiting for visitors sipped slowly over conversation social ties sealed with a cup of heaven
