Redolence

When we can, we like to sleep in 
on weekends. For brunch, we make 

coffee the slow-pour way. It feels 
luxurious just to have eggs, bread, 

papaya cut into squares and laced
with honey and citrus. In our other 

lives, our mothers and grandmothers 
were up before the leaves of the chayote 

unfurled out of the cold. In our other 
lives, they calculated expense vs. need 

vs. desire; they boiled rather than fried, 
mended until a thing fell to pieces from 

the mending. This morning, though the world 
doesn't lack for terrible news, I changed 

pillowcases shiny with oil from our heads, sheets 
humid from the island shapes we rocked into place 

through the night. Envelopes lie on the counter
demanding what we must pay and by when, how much  

we still owe in order to lie under a ceiling the color 
of eggshells. Leaving a cafe a few months ago, I pinched

a sprig of sambac— Arabian jasmine— from bushes massed 
by the entrance. The dream of its scent plucked 

at my sleeve, ghost flower even now, its roots waving 
in water until I can marry it again to the earth.