post-it

Papa, it’s been long since I wrote to you

About evenings without coffee, about the dust

In the city that I’m living in.

I almost forgot your favorite sunset brand

 – Mine is the one persevered in the balcony at home

Where you first taught me how to smoke.

We didn’t go to the sea together for a long time,

Now I miss you like waves, like salt.

I turn off the light but can’t close my eyes,

Thinking about how you cured my fever with

Fables about rats and pumpkins

 – I was five back then.

I can never forget the way you burped

At my 12-year-old birthday party,

The kitchen shook

 – My father is a man with thunder in him.

Now you never hear about my seventeen,

But I don’t know how to blame a man

Whose messy hair, grumpy mood

And wordy heart

Descends in his daughter.

2022.1.24