That linoleum smell
followed me like a spell, sodden
corners humming often
for father’s forgotten likeness.
On shelves were fragrances
for healing the sickness of grief
of a dear life made brief.
Dried chrysanthemum leaves were love
stocked in rows far above
where I could touch. But of most things
I desired, it was wings
to spring from my sproutling body.
Bags of the basmati
rice that laid shoddily in aisle
twelve were made, for a while,
into beds for senile and young
folk alike and among
these bedrooms, I heard tongues unfurl
her wishes. Mother curled
into a sleepy gnarl, with joss
sticks burning bygone thoughts.
Ballads robbed by gunshots, window-
glass gone like a widow’s
half. She forms a riddle to ask
how one carries on this task
of leaving a marred past behind.
Yet life’s never unkind
when love lives on enshrined in a
corner store and each day
is as holy as a Sunday.