when you put the kettle on,
i pot myself like lamb’s ear,
my wooly skin tuning the sky,
trees hot and unknown, scaly asphalt endless,
pockets of peripheral concerns, highway medians,
here your heart ripples like a fabric shorn,
signaling wind, signaling back,
padding me against your fresh bee sting,
breezing, counting, all manner of distance-games,
anything that carries us away together
like you in the air, eating an ocean,
feeding your family back home with the view,
a memory you are padding me against,
my wooly skin tuning the sky,
turning the blood red fig into rubble
which we pick together,
my hairy wings alight in the midday,
salted from your journey
which we have taken together,
me in your contrails,
drowning on ocean,
watching you finish your chai kurdi,
my matted soil replenishing cup
after cup, in desolate worship
of your wounds, which i have watered
with aging promise to match
your howls when you to take the exit
somewhere in America.
Pınar Yaşar is a writer from Boston, MA. Their work can be found in Storm Cellar Quarterly, Cathexis Northwest Press, and HVTN. Yaşar is an alum of the Tin House SWW and a Best of the Net nominee. A child of the Kurdish diaspora, they record their family’s legacy of leadership and loss through what they consider to be insurrectionist poetry. They can be found on twitter: @pinaryasar_