Sometimes we spill the milk
and it looks like the moon.
How it’s all over the place, how
my dad yelled so much in kitchens
but still taught me how to chop
peppers, digging out the seeds
like a pumpkin. Add more sugar,
but never tell, he said. Sweet
spaghetti sauce, our specialty.
The secret is always to be tender,
to let yourself crumple in the water—
unfit levee because love was always
meant to knock us over every time.
These horizontal days, we can only
find someone warm and begin
to give everything up again:
the ties I saved after my dad’s
funeral, the newspaper clipping
of the man I loved face down
under a bottle of perfume,
bell peppers I carried home
from the market, carved out
and chambered like a heart.
If you can hold them—if you
can make something sweet
of them without cutting out
the bitter parts—you can keep
all of it, nested in your arms.
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