Ahmed Tarek

for when we meet again

how little I thought I would miss

standing in your littered streets
aching 
to be reunited with every cloud fighting
not to drown
in your smog-filled skies.

i still hear whispers from those who stayed behind.
she’s grown ill with debt; my brother says
no cure she can afford.

at night i wonder
what it would feel like
to wake up
surrounded by the very same walls I scaled to escape you
but only for a moment.

I’d nestle into your arms just as I once have.
I’d grant myself
the warmth I denied
only for a moment.

I’d draw us a map
to cast the footprints you missed
from the minute i walked away

in this room 
is where I suffered,
by this oak 
is where I loved,
behind these hills I saw god.

god from the leafless tree,
cloaked in ice 
from root to tip
in the dead of winter.

god from the sun torn tulips
god 

of the rustic pine table where the four of us gathered;
god from every unbreathed air of love,
still lingering in the small spaces
between our fingertips

and if you’d let me
i’d swear to paint pictures of every corner store I watched him walk out of
i would bring them all back to you
but only for a moment.

I’d tell you about the summer
and how I watched the great lakes flicker

luminous and infinite,
i’d picture them stretching out towards you.

I’d tell you about all the times I closed my eyes
and listened the waves crash
until their cries began to sound enough like your ocean when she sang to me.
you were ill then too