the yasmine's return

Jasmine petals pierced
and strung into wreaths, slipped
over curls undamaged, lively
like youth spent in concrete
balconies with dense rice pudding,
midnight tea layering onto
our tongues that uttered
nothing but naivete

Noisy weddings, machete’d brawls and vibrant funerals
watched through the erratic slits
made by billowing damp laundry
pinned to drooping clotheslines,
The tree in giddo’s balcony
sprouted gradient petals
for decades before the revolution
then slept for the two years
of devastation that ensued
after our “liberation”
just like my grandfather did,
giddo’s still asleep

A tangerine shadher propped up
on bricks littered, balconies neglected
as I slept through migraines
of undefined anxiety,
The cloth walls matched the cores
of a single yasmine forcing through
the day the mother
who lived above the bakery
died—
First blossom of the year.

Her scent will stay with the street,
the bakery breathes floral mists
of her departure and
the return of the yasmine.

—
naira badawi