“You Said You Love Me” by Maria Khan
Early in the morning, while the tea is steeping,
I put out the ashtray full of seeds and bread
crusts for the quetzels and yigüirros.
The rosemary bush shakes underneath
the clothes I forgot to bring in from the line,
little fat brown balls roll out
who have no shortage
of food, no predators, a backyard in Moravia
all to themselves. Their water pump to bathe
in, the cas tree dropping sweets
at their feet. This is what I left you for.
Watching overstuffed birds,
Beggars tapping at the gates calling upe!,
the huevos man barking prices from a rusted van,
while I sit and write
page after page about you.
~Jessica Tyner
Jessica Tyner is from Oregon, a member of the Cherokee Nation, and has been a writer for ten years. She is currently a travel writer with Yahoo!, the entertainment columnist for Hound the Press, and a contributing editor at New York’s Thalo Magazine. She has recently published short fiction in India’s Out of Print Magazine and poetry in Slow Trains Literary Journal, Straylight Magazine, Solo Press, and Glint Literary Journal. Her first novel has been picked up by Swift Publishing House. She enjoys teaching yoga and has a bad habit of collecting first editions.
