Maybe I like it in here.
Maybe it keeps the chill of your wind
and the heat of your glare
off my neck.
Maybe it still smells like
my mother’s desert hyacinths,
my father’s hidden stash of cigarillos,
the gahwa we used to roast in the kitchen.
Maybe, in here, I am home again.
Maybe I’m waiting to cast away
this piece of cloth
and the faith of my fathers
until the braces come off.
Maybe these are just my clothes.
Or maybe you are right
and, in here, I am pressed flat
in the dark,
a flower taken from the sun and shelved away.
—Day Jamison reads and writes at the foot of Mt. Timpanogos in the Utah Valley. She is a somewhat librarian and professional eavesdropper. Her work has appeared in freeze frame fiction and Seven Deadly Sins: Pride.