sashiko

(for MA)

Imagine a bowl specifically for tomatoes.
It’s ceramic, cream-colored. Little
plums and cherries painted on its side.
It is the proper size to hold five months
of summer. You knew it would be there
as soon as you walked in the door.

Imagine someone who wants to fill you up 
with stoplight heirlooms. She likes to wrap
a blanket around her waist like a skirt. 
She doesn’t like to wear skirts. 
She swaggered up into my face and 
smashed a bottle over my skull and 
what ran down my nose and 
dripped onto the floor was
the purple of nightshades.

There’s a name for what we’re doing 
and it’s so holy it will get you kicked out of church. 

I like to choose. I like to decide.
Deciding is a gesture towards certainty
and I like certainty. 
You can surprise me, though.
You surprise me every day, loving 
food and eating little, loving
me with the grace of a dandelion spore 
dancing the wind. Folding
yourself into shapes
unknown to geometry. How
fast your hair dries, how 
quick the silver stirs in the sun.
Your heart and how 
much it wants and how 
cautious it is and how
it asks, can I have that
(yes), 
is that forever 
(no, but yes), 
does it matter that much
(yes, Yes, YES, 
it’s everything). 

It’s a Japanese thing, sashiko, 
meaning “little stabs,”
the practical 
taking the threadbare  
and stitching together
something unassailable 
and humbly beautiful. Making
a well-loved pair of jeans last
longer than bottomless coffee
on a screened-in porch
with a nervous dog and 
all those new birds and 
my hand on your ankle and
all our stories 
quilted into a story.

Imagine wanting anything more than this.