First line taken from Allen Ginsberg’s “Kaddish”

 

strange now to think of you,

once a smooth face with saucer eyes,

brown as the chocolate chips

mommy would put in your pancakes.

she made tiny, island-shaped bites that

your little hands would snatch—the

same five fingers that used to grab

hers to cross the narrow queens streets

we still call home, the same ten fingers

that type away, writing these words to you now.

 

the world seemed so much grander then, back when

curly strands of your pigtails flounced in the wind,

barely tied together by the pink, flowery clips

nanni kept in squeaky kitchen drawer, the one

closest to the then-towering fridge where glossy

pictures of you, clipped by magnets, souvenirs of

places once foreign, reflected the fluorescent lights.

strange now to think of you when I gaze into the mirror

we once used tippie-toes to reach. I’ve tucked your picture

into the scalloped frame. you watch over once-pink, now-

lavender walls (although we swore pink would always be our

favorite), wearing a smile both familiar and long faded. you

would be surprised to see how much has changed: how the

oak bookcase, though doubled in height, is missing your favorite

stories; how a desk, strewn with papers and pens, occupies so

much space; how bare our bed is without your stuffed companions.

you’d search for vanished momentos, memorabilia I wouldn’t even

remember discarding. would you find what remains empty? dull?

and, if you could see our reflection—see my tired eyes,

my pursed lips, my painted skin—I wonder what you

would think. would you even recognize me, all

these years later? or would you recognize yourself,

now buried beneath layers of the years’ hard,

yellowed varnish, but still breathing and beating

and quietly steering the tide of our life.

strange now to think of you.

---

Hifza Kaleem reflects on a reflection.