Places to be

Valerie Deus

There are 25 boxes with
Your name on them
25 different places for you to be

this morning's burnt bitter coffee
was acidic on my tongue and brings back the conversation
I've been craving to have with you
the dress you bought me last summer shrank in the wash
the cotton one with the small yellow flowers
the one I wore to your parents' backyard BBQ when your Aunt finally said “Fuck this”
a life of dieting is over and had 3 full pieces of apple cherry pie
I stood there in the mowed green grass of your parents' backyard in my yellow dress
Like Easter tulips
Your mother eyed me suspecting I wasn't quite American enough, and Caribbean enough
You loved me in that dress
It shrank around the bosom tight around the ribcage
My heart had grown too big and pushed the buttons out
I hulked in my yellow dress
And listen as you call me from the Mississippi to the banks of the Hudson