You don’t like smoking in other cities. You take pleasure in buying Friday morning figs from the same spot your tongue first met the lips of someone you would later love, your bodies pressed against graffiti on the shuttered market door in the night.

Sefarad, Safed, Saphah, / Saphon, Saphon, / Toledo - I will write your name with my left hand / For there’s a chance I’ve already forgotten you.

Who taught you to hate the shape of your lips / Your tongue and your mother’s maiden name? / Who forgot your summer clothes at the Black sea?

Three calendars hang in our kitchen: / One begins in spring, one in fall / One in winter. The start and halt / Of a well-used car. A sundial / Someone keeps moving. Summer begins / In my Papa Joon’s memoir.