Nostalgia: Wabi Sabi
by Alain Jules Hirwa
When beads of rain are crystalline in the pink of hibiscus,
I take petrichor to mean even stones are mating.
When the rain stops, I stroll the city and mix its petrichor with a blunt.
When birds fly off the balcony for my arrival, I remind them
I too sit in airplanes fleeing what I will always return to.
Because before you hold a rose you locate its thorns,
when I close the door behind me, I take off my clothes
like a doctor unbandaging a wound.
Under the showerhead, my throat is filled with songbirds.
When I hang up, I hear every crack my caller’s mouth makes as it chews everything she did not say to me.
When the peaches’ smell disappears from my kitchen, I drive around the city,
searching for more noise.
When snakes come out at night, I study their scale patterns.
When the Serenity Prayer is over, I surrender to whatever God will plant
in my closing eyes—even war, even worse.