To Poppy Seeds

You are so dark and so little
But in my memories, not long ago, if you did not allow Friday’s baptism by fire
To redeem for the man-made sins and scandals to transpire
You could’ve been a flower by now
Innocent and beautiful

But you lie lifelessly like causalities of war,
Drones and worker bees who had their golden-striped bodies charred pitch-black
Before they could feast upon the completed renovation of their nest
On the orders of a dazed queen
Who had the dream to cook the best dish
Until the stove was left burning while she danced with maids in the kitchen
And all then became her last wish
The one that you have not forgotten

And now with a magnifying glass,
I see the trails of you climbing down from Afghan mountains
On the borders of a country that has been—

To swim in the river of Mekong
Riding waves and to attempt an séance with bones of dead fish
And to lament for the victims of Viet Cong
And survivors of variegated attempts to discipline and punish
To suck voraciously upon water and nitrogen like honey in cow dung
To be able to inhale later, the carbon dioxide we expire, the wealth we acquire and throw away, and variegated plots we conspire and never finish
Because we spend times way too long waiting for a flatulence to pass, after binging on a lemon poppy muffin

I hear the screeching sound of your fingernails grabbing onto something about which I am not certain
To escape the quicksand of the Freedom Land since dried to become
A gaping hole, all sides made of Mother Earth finely pulverized and solidified like porcelain—
That hole, on my Monday morning’s everything bagel,
And here you are, lying still, upon mountains of carbohydrates and gluten
Still as numb and as little,
As the forbidden molecule hidden within you, invisible

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