Nexttime

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by Andrew Adair

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I am grandma & my girl’s girl, looking down & looking up at me,

I harvest the ones with edible skin, then stand in the door of the kitchen

& show me just how good I do.

 

I open from the middle out to get shared what I know with me

& all of it pours in & some will seep out slow, I know,

but some I hope to keep for me.

 

& daily drifts a hot breath of rot from the sitting room,

a stagnant life which never lifts a finger ‘cept to drag it

‘cross my open face.

 

Prepare, share, cry alone, sleep alone, prepare, share, give, teach, pray alone, sleep alone, prepare, care, sit alone, choke on tears, think of them, live to share, life is to share, to take care of the me down there looking up.

 

Think I caught a glimpse of

a nexttime century of something new.

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Andrew Adair is a poet and translator from Indiana living in Mexico City. His poetry and fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in perhappened mag, Cheap Pop, and The Lumiere Review. As translator, his work has appeared in Waxwing, BrooklynRail’s InTranslation, and Latin American Literature Today. He can be found on Twitter at @a_dear_raw_din.

 

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