Tarfia Faizullah
4 AM, February, After a Dinner: A Poem for My Future Lover
-high fives to Jet Fuel & SM & JK
I am fine only having this life, a friend
said at the long table. All around, winter +
its elevated requirements for survival.
A miracle: even the youngest among us
continues to manage loss, damage, demise,
frost. But tonight, warm garlic knots +
baked penne + chicken parmigiana +
baked clams + Montepulciano = words to say
that we all (somehow) ended up in America
to fight for what we decide matters, i.e., more
marinara, more of us in colors, though there are
those among us who also enjoy lemon +
a little olive oil. This week, the State
of the Union, next week, more discussion
of this or that wall. Here, we say the words
practice + listen + yes + faith. Here, a glass
flute of prosecco is a gallery for a kiss-print,
the same pink as a strip of ribbon
I once saw tied about a soft-seeming wrist
at this or that nightclub. Another friend
says, I was once younger. I wanted to run
a hand over the silver bristles that adorn
their moonless hair. I am relearning how
to adore. I take another sip: astonishment:
all we don't know: each other's colors.
Come soon, O tender disaster, O significance
of another! Come quick, O summer of faith +
listen + practice + yes, I aim to be scorched
by your summer storm. Or, I am the summer
storm, or, I am eager
for the slaughter. I am fine sharing this knife.
I am fine only having this life, a friend
said at the long table. All around, winter +
its elevated requirements for survival.
A miracle: even the youngest among us
continues to manage loss, damage, demise,
frost. But tonight, warm garlic knots +
baked penne + chicken parmigiana +
baked clams + Montepulciano = words to say
that we all (somehow) ended up in America
to fight for what we decide matters, i.e., more
marinara, more of us in colors, though there are
those among us who also enjoy lemon +
a little olive oil. This week, the State
of the Union, next week, more discussion
of this or that wall. Here, we say the words
practice + listen + yes + faith. Here, a glass
flute of prosecco is a gallery for a kiss-print,
the same pink as a strip of ribbon
I once saw tied about a soft-seeming wrist
at this or that nightclub. Another friend
says, I was once younger. I wanted to run
a hand over the silver bristles that adorn
their moonless hair. I am relearning how
to adore. I take another sip: astonishment:
all we don't know: each other's colors.
Come soon, O tender disaster, O significance
of another! Come quick, O summer of faith +
listen + practice + yes, I aim to be scorched
by your summer storm. Or, I am the summer
storm, or, I am eager
for the slaughter. I am fine sharing this knife.
--
Tarfia Faizullah is the author of two poetry collections, Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf, 2018) and Seam (SIU, 2014).The recipient of a Fulbright fellowship, three Pushcart prizes, and other honors, Faizullah has also been featured at the Liberation War Museum of Bangladesh and the Library of Congress. In 2016, Faizullah was recognized by Harvard Law School as one of 50 Women Inspiring Change. Born in Brooklyn, NY to Bangladeshi immigrants and raised in Texas, she currently teaches in the Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as a Visiting Artist in Residence.