“What if we were fire?” you once asked, the night
sky clenched tight around us like
eyelids but not tight enough
to press us together—not yet.
“What would we do?” I asked in return.
It wasn’t the stars that burned languid holes into my
memory
like the afterimage of sparklers I shared with you
because white dudes didn’t get sparklers
from their grandmothers on Diwali.
“We’d eat everything, of course,” you said, voice
hoarse with smoke I didn’t yet know
belonged there, “before taking flight.”
###
When you first kissed me,
numbing-hot,
blister-perfect,
licking like campfire flames on marshmallows you
taught me how to toast because I’d
read about s’mores in American
middle-school novels,
I didn’t notice how your regenerating caniniforms
had already sprouted. I thought it was me—
clumsy-hearted,
jittery-mouthed—
who made our teeth clack painfully.
###
“Did you know?” everyone asked
on the phone as I blinked away salt even though
silicone-electric distance shielded
my eyes
in restaurants as I replaced feelings with cheese
from cows brushed daily for the
highest quality milk
on social media as I pasted on grinning emojis like
bandages—teeth, or no teeth?
Tongue or none?
Did I know that
Your tail would outgrow our bed
your scales would scar my retinas with their lustre
your appetite would twist away from any curry I
could fling-fling on our stovetop
When your eyes grew so large you could no longer
cry, did I remember hoarse smoke and clumsy teeth
and how you seared me when we first
pressed naked on a twin bed so
uncomfortable
we slept on the floor in sticky giggles?
Did I know that you would vomit sparkles like a
grandmother’s gift?
Did I know that you would eat everything
before taking flight?
