We Can't Change the Orbits Quite Yet
       

We have long talks about
what color my blood really is,

how many hearts the octopus can
make breath and still swim with.

I think the Hudson is the river
and not the dog. I want the shoulder

and muscles, the muzzle to be a rounded
wave. We can make it make sense.

Here's the octopus, eight hearts
beating within each tentacle.

Here's my open finger
and my black blood.

Here's a man walking his pressed shirt
down the rainy street anyway.

Here's the muscle in his jaw moving
up and down, a seesaw.

Here's his shoulder pushing
out of your wave and into

a message from my mother
in pictures. She's past words

now and I hear every thing
she means. The sound

of a small plane in the suburban
sky is my father saying hello.

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Copyright © 2017 Jenny Sadre-Orafai All rights reserved
from Malak
Platypus Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission