you always asked if
i wanted more potatoes,
and i would cover
my plastic plate
with my callused hands
and say no, granny.
you would stir the potatoes
in the boiling pot
and spoon them out,
yellowed
like sunflowers,
and the steam would rise and swirl and tumble
in the air,
the sizzle and crack
like sheets of rain,
of fireplaces, wood splintering.
we were kind to each other then.
and when we left
our thursday night dinners
you would wait
on the curbside
while the wind
sucked
at your skirt
and tried
to hollow your skin.
you would wave and wave,
you were still waving
as the streetlights dimmed
and the frogs sung their nighttime lullabies,
hand,
high in the air,
even after we had turned the corner,
driven into the darkness,
still your figure shone
against the pavement.
we stopped coming
for thursday night dinners
the year you died.
thirteen blocks was too far to drive.
we didn’t have the time.
i kept your postcards and your drawings
to hang
on the blank patches on my wall,
in the corners
where no one could see, or laugh,
or ask if i was crazy.
and as the moon waned
and the trees were soothed into dreams,
i would look at the paintings,
and see your face,
wispy grey hair and the greenest eyes,
and i would see your sunflower potatoes,
and the steam whirling around us all,
and i would not sleep
knowing you would stop waving
once i closed my eyes.
what if you were waving
so long and so hard
because you thought,
from the reflections
of the car windows,
we were waving in return?
the leftover potatoes
were an excuse
to make us stay.
you didn’t have a clock
but we would always leave at seven.
you bought us the candies
we weren’t allowed to have
but we liked home better.
i jumped into
your outstretched arms
when i was eleven
as if
you would carry
me
and the whole world,
but you collapsed
and broke two ribs.
we didn’t care
for your fragility
in room 211
on the hardened
hospital bed,
even if we
made you
bleed honey.
now,
beneath the apartment buildings
and broken,
blinking
lights,
beneath the sunflowers
and patches of weeds,
on the curbside,
a cornerstone
between Dana and University,
your shadow
is engraved
in the gravel,
and you are waving,
as if to say
goodbye,
to let go,
to hope
we come again.
Lhamo Dixey is a poet from Berkeley, California. You might find her cozying under fifteen pillows with a good book, (the favorite being Pachinko by Min Jin Lee), in the aisles of local thrift stores searching for new necklaces and rings to add to her collection, or meditating in her dorm room! Her other hobbies are singing classical music, attempting to play the ukulele, and road race cycling when she’s not too worn out from school.