Sideways touches

I keep growing wheat sprouts for Newrouz and keep checking my phone. I don’t know how to live between ritual and dread, but this is one way my hands know.

Anger teaches touch.
The tension in my mouth cannot move.
Speech is a touch.
Speech is flesh—
talk to me—slowly. The phone holds. 

I feel bombs dropping. I am flying sideways.
I was traveling, making a home
in a place that smelled like home, only sideways.

I am here now. It touches me.
This quiet here is what I need,
but I cannot stop thinking of my mom under the bombs.
She might still be home. Does she call it home?
These days she grows wheat sprouts for Newrouz.
Do you think I can grow my throat?

My throat grows into a ghazal
that collects untouched touches—
that I carry in my pocket.

Sideways, the heart keeps going.
Sideways, the mouth becomes touch.