the summer (2021) i learned what gold means

I. it was the month my father left
and my mother learned how to laugh again

i sat down for lunch in the same
construed table with trinkets

collected over years as she and i
pulled the afternoon apart with a fork

she always wore a gold bracelet
dulled by humid air that hung heavy
but you’re supposed to have two

it was the first jewellery my father bought
and he said he would buy her another one
when he had the money again

the years went by, their marriage fell apart
she has not taken it off since 2001

II. two months earlier she would show me
her jewellery box, organised, neatly placed, picked apart

she said this is all i ever owned, and she picked one up
placed it on my hand and said
this one’s for your wife, this for your brother’s

this one for turham’s, he’s like my son too
she said, this is all i ever owned -
i wonder if it would be different if i had daughters instead

it is a strange feeling to see your parent as a person
vulnerable, and utterly helpless - a child unburdened

i don’t know what it was but i cried in the kitchen sink that day


III. i was six and it was eid
she complained that she was out of money
i took whatever i got that day and put it in her purse

she never knew it was me while i glanced
as i made a paradise out of lego bricks
and spoonfuls of powdered milk
underneath the kitchen sink

romeo told me in his twenties all his poems were just angry
i think, we forget things if we have nobody to tell them to