Things I’ve Been Meaning to Say
By Amelia Badri
(or a sorry sestina)
That first year of life, I constantly used a washcloth to wipe the corner of your eye,
the blocked tear duct created a sticky goo that obstructed the foothill and flower
view of your little browns, as if two copper irises that dipped in and out
of our clay soil sleep, but Aurora, I could take all the candle-fly’s light
in the dull world, and it still wouldn’t match the moon-tune
of your smile, those lost sock memories that fuzz and fade so
fast, flutter off like the Amazon’s animals dying colors, our Calypso-
hip-to-hip-hammock-hugs phase, temple of the lost kitty days, a doll-eye
dot on your forehead to chase away the envy of your joy for a goofy cartoon
or lining wads of dough up like dwarves and trying to lick the flour
off your fingers, I worried that my own lack of spice and kick and light
would put yours out,
sometimes my eelpout aggression would turn into a dark rainspout
puddle, too swamped to help you put your boots on to trek to the patio’s Rio Oso
to pick fresh peaches off the backs of wet bears, read leaf maps, and stay light
on your feet, I could probably blame the spot on my tongue like a black eye,
according to my mother’s mole astrology, her and I are flowered
with the power to have most our negative words come true, is it Neptune
or Mars that makes me more porcupine platoon
when you need me to be a dumpling-star-soup, safe space in a blackout,
lost in your alien wonders and tiger scribbles as wild as passionflowers,
I want to deliver the syrup of alphonso mangos to your quick whips, lasso
your words onto all my pages, watch YouTube shorts about the iguana’s third eye
and help you unlock your own when night’s lack of happy light
sends you looking for me, where our arms can still be two pegs on the Lite-
Brite board that is missing most of the other pieces, little escaped Looney Tunes
we hardly find throughout the house, pink and green, and like our bunny’s eyes
that were at one point baby blue, thank you for helping me out
with these lines, to pause on the parts I usually let crawl away, for making it so
easy to turn a cold-front morning burst in sun-dried, plantain-flour
yellow, I pray goddess of good mommies, wherever you may be, turn me from undone sunflower
to pork crackling mofongo, filled and merry as the full moon, even she takes delight
in your chicken and rice jokes, she knows how to sew
each one into her thick cardigan so your grandpa can tune
into all your inherited trickster hues, even when life binds us in tears, we’ll get out
together, a calm place to play, when it’s just you and I
cry, scream, cat crouch, spear the flower’s too quiet tune,
hit me with your quick jabs or take a light swing, slug it out,
bruise the gummy day’s ego, poke the murk so precisely in the eye.
Amelia Badri is a Guyanese-American mother, teacher, and writer from Miami.
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