Sonnet for a Shitty Monday

First, the alarm, five-thirty, a staticky hum needles

my brain. I’m awake. Then the husband shower-blocks

me, I’m barefoot on the cold tile, you can see how

the feeling begins. The morning is black; I make

coffee. My 7 a.m. students slowly raise their eyes,

drifting into consciousness like clouds, mere dreams

pushing through. Next, not enough coffee. I

cultivate hate: a thorn, buried in my chest, blooms

everywhere, with no origin. No coffee, no wifi, weak

tea. It’s not you, I tell the world, it’s me. My turn

to drift, home this time, where everything I see

blooms blue. On Monday, this is what I’ve earned.

Some days, demands exceed capacity.

Nothing to do then, but consume, and stew, and be.

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The History of Cumin

 

I’m seductive, sublime, redolent of pepper and hot desert wind, but common, like salt. I fill the room, a hot, dense fog. No one ignores me. Not everyone loves me, I get that, I’m an acquired taste, like dry wine that tastes of berries and loam. I’m a smokier sort, the kind of woman who enters a room dangling a cigarette from her fingers, eyes blackened with kohl, her voice a thick Turkish coffee. You imagine the Silk Road, dusty paths with caravans of camels. Actually, I traveled with the Spanish, fertile and amorous, spreading my love to all, taking root in rocks and soot. I’m polymorphous; I’ve gone as far as China. But you’ll find me, in the mole, masala, mutaki. I sneak up on you. I’m sly and overpowering. I’m the overtones of the marketplace, the residue of the hearth, the charred remains of game .

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Self-Portrait as The Two Fridas (1939)

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone.

                                                                                                                        Frida Kahlo

 In my self-portrait, I want to be truly alone,

 me with me, holding hands with myself,

both my hearts exposed. I want to show

the self who loves and is the loved, and the self

who wants to cut out hearts with a pair

of scissors. The one who wears casual blue,

an old, brown skirt, she doesn’t care;

the other  who wears a wedding dress, with a too

tight collar, strangled. I don’t want that. I

want what I want:  the self, exposed, the shimmer

of two gray storm clouds, my hand holding my

very own hand. I want the blank canvas and the mirror.

I want to show everyone the me I thought I saw,

the self-portrait as judgment: scathing and raw.

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