Forgiveness

My mama threw her falafel at him
because he wouldn't put any red cabbage
on her naked pita--
he put everything
on the others. Everything
for those who stood with cameras, passports--
visitors assured like sweat in June.

When she threw her curve,
I could see the onion grow roots,
my mama swearing, asking, remembering
her cattail brew
to make the lamb roast faster
than a reluctant kiss,
to transform the bread into Saltine crackers,
to summon the firepeople
for a tango of smoke
as he tried to explain
that some foreigner
had tried to remake his recipe.

After she didn't leave for twenty-two minutes,
I knew she could tie them up.
Those that knew:
the boy who fumbled for the word
water, coming out of unconsciousness;
the woman who mumbled that "everything had been nice,"
wonderful, like the tour of churches
built with in-house tombs.
She would tie them up with barbed wire,
potent enough to convince the goddess
to take them in absence
of basil and thyme.

But when she sat down on the sidewalk,
pressing her belly like untimed
labor, she cried.
She said it was like the time when she
had to buy those shoes.
The saleswoman, explaining that those were the only
pair left, exhibited
them like they were the tips
of the last unicorns.

She had to buy them for the recital,
the choir of white
dresses singing like angels
manufacturing sheen-- And now this:

The American coke.

She didn't drink, but
threw it at him, watching
the ice hit
like hail on pane.

Karen Mitchell was born in Columbus, Mississippi. She is the author of The Eating Hill and has published in several magazines.

...