Smells like Christmas

It smells like Christmas in my kitchen,
smells like the time I stopped
in the heart of the house

right in the middle like a clot
not moving nor let anyone move
to make Christmas over cold stoves

here is a list of things you need for cake
that serves 6, realistically
even if you are on your own:

* peeled apples
* 3/4 sugar
* flour
* cinnamon
* nutmeg
* salt (to taste)

I stand on a flat corner
kneading the flour
needing a listening ear

I stand in the corner
in my house,
shaking like a belly dancer after a long show
cupping powdered sugar to an empty heart

voice, women, faith

A woman's voice
moves mountains
so does faith

birth and baptism

you sing about baptism before birth
how glorious, it is
the water

Daisies

Ring around the roses
but you pick daisies

not in season, these flowers
that are a wild spring breathing

daisies, daisies
denting on your window

this is age, you sleep
with the daisies looking after you

breathing.

minimal life

Try looking at the things you keep
unlike humans, you are able to discard
items that are shelled-out

fished from other people's pockets
or dreams, broken up stones
end of evenings, boring conversations

try extracting the old
out with it and in with shiny things
against the rule of your head

try looking at things you keep
to add onto you, like boulders
on your shoulders 

Dream ciphered

How this, I can see it clearly,
your arm, warm and hairy wrapped around my shoulder

I know it is wrong
the feeling that comes without my awakening

even with closed eyes
I can tell another woman's ring is on your finger

I don't budge
I don't open my eyes

instead I turn to look at your face
its details crafting a new explanation

to the term between the sheets
to synonyms to making love

an orgasm for the lonely times
without feeling the pangs

a throbbing of a definite sin
on a last day of fasting

but in the dream world
coded as in I want you

as in I need you
as in let me touch your body

or allow yourself to touch me once
again, even if I am sleeping

in my sleep.

Scout girl in uniform

Girl scout in uniform
beret in hand, smaller than half my waist

lifts her head up, demands
a treatment that is fair to her

despite the lack of fair skin
long hair, night-dark

a mother behind her, makes a scene
with her projected speeches

about respect. I wonder
when will I be able to raise a woman

of steel and feather
able to love and break as equally

as two sides of a coin
a woman unlike me

that has no bother with the things
left behind sunny days

this is the effect of one girl scout
asking for a glass of water to quench my thirst.

a battle against tongues

I feel like I am running a battle against tongues
one my mother gave me that contains
enough expressions to make possible, life
with the others I have gained along the way

collecting like star-dust
meaning, word after word to make sense
of other ways to say the same things
but with gentleness, with vigor, with insanity

I feel like I am running a battle against tongues
that get out of the way when I love
because I lose language in seconds
before I fall

stammering at my basic ABCs
that are replaced by music,
butterflies and somber lyrics
one I call softness

I feel like I am running a battle against tongues
as one leaps to the front at the very minute I push it backwards
biting down on sailor language, wrong adjectives
in fear of the sharp blade it has

making peace in a battle is impossible
but living like siblings has proved a good use
for you cannot hate on your own blood
even if it flows through different veins.

words or selves

I got written a poem
to save my soul

you tell me and I am not surprised
you feel touched

I haven't written
to fill your voids

but should up at your door
wearing all the past you don't even remember.

dandelions, or mixed names

what do you call it,
she blinks at me

the flower that you puff
the one for the horses

we call it horse flower
what do you call it?

a dandelion, with mixed names
clear genes to hold its spine up.

Damning Cupid

This is the failure of the lovers
once sifted on two floating boats
the damnation follows cupid
who ties and separates bodies

a renewed faith

for miss B

You had a spark
a touch, that's always been different- you tell me

I shudder at the faith you give me
one I lost when I last saw you.

for hope has more than one definition

The painter's tools before your hands
sparkle
when I ask you say;
there's more than one definition to hope.

courage, my girl

Push yourself
to be more like your poems;
a piece of courage jumping out of the window.

Goodbye, to a friend

This is the status of departure
a dull goodbye
with bags dragging behind us both.

Stick incense

Reminder of an India I have never seen
with my very eyes, the smoke rising slowly toward the ceiling
reminds me of an India I have never seen live
but heard in a northerner's Urdu wordings
a delicate Delhi accent, a Punjabi poet rising
like smoke out of ashes.

Rethinking heritage

A vision of my grandmother, with glasses on
strands of yarn in her fingers making jackets
to restrain warmth in my chest
this is heritage,
the way love is weaved for us to hold in our hands.

Our mothers

Superheroes, without capes
under-celebrated, even when we give flowers
our mothers

No longer

Is the voice using
the words like can and cannot
these are auxiliary verbs- words that keep moving.

You, a floor and a beat

The positioning of your legs
on the dance-floor
is the only meaning I take out of the rhythm.