to grow roots in coffee dirt
Madalena Daleziou
the sink is filled with coffee dirt
said my flatmate who never had a
sip, since the last school exam
so put two and two together
I run a sponge over stubborn
black specks the way I once ran it
on motherland dirt, wiping
my body clean—there’s none left
now, none of the dirt my people
impregnated with thyme, tomatoes,
and citrus trees—I touched my
cactus the day I moved in this
tenement and I should have seen
the aptness of the metaphor—
this is all I can grow; small and
thorny, few needs, no ties—
this is the only way I know to
grow roots: in coffee specks
unfiltered like mother dirt
the day I have strong black tea—
bag bathed 4 minutes—with milk
and a spoonful of sugar, I don’t
know if it’s an old home losing
ground or a new one gaining it
I crumble the paper-memory of the
balcony and the mosquito bites and
the tall glass of instant coffee-trash
with two sugar cubes and three ices
—telling myself tea is a spell my mother
would brew in our tealess country—
sugar tea feeds you after migraine
vomiting—telling myself my local
friends don’t have tea with any meal
so no need for me to see my
stretched pinkie finger as promise
and call it assimilation—telling
myself I grew in this land, not tall
but brave, not rootless but weaving
new roots planted in coffee dirt
