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Night Jasmine
Years after, in the dark, in the heat
of summer, through parted curtains it came
in search of me, the scent of night-blooming
jasmine from a windswept porch.
And the girls who pierced white buds
into leis had long gone, the painted
swing seat rusted and worn
where mothers snapped sweet peas
or bent their heads over a game of cards.
How long the day seemed, how little
we knew of what our mothers hoped
to forget, their cares kept hidden
like coins we buried in the vacant lot.
What song played on the lime green
phonograph, underwater sounds that rippled
in widening circles to the waning afternoon,
through cracks in our hiding places?
Like smoke from clove cigarettes
or silk of someone’s fingers on the wrist—
you’re found,
come home—the song unwound
its silver spool, repeating
how far we’d gone.
Angela
Narcisco Torres
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