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by Azzurra Cox

No pleasant reason why we sleep here, the rocks under our napes
couch inflections like domed teaspoons of clay,
the mild red suggestions of evening, birth
after lulling in flames.
All I know is the decayed maps we go by, the ones hummed by the blind
in yesterday’s lamplight and a tepid pool
where the jackfruit bursts in land it does not recognize.
It’s the warmth of obsolescence, the worst book I’ve ever read
in a lost blue city of roots
where I was reminded how this room smells like uncle’s garden,
the melons fed by cracked eggshells and a latent addiction to silk
fired into teasing greek curves, the gazing gestures
forgotten in the kitchen when the grass was still burning.

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