Chicago, 2008. After the hospital.

this is a memory of gunpowder tea.

how, once, you palmed green pellets—

purls of withered oolong pan-fired

in your grandmother’s town in Taiwan—

a haphazard scoop, a measure of care

into hot water, not quite cutting a boil.

fingers as soft pincers replacing the lid

of a porcelain teapot with a light ting.

snow outside turned streets into rivers

frozen over, the cars lining them made

frosted mountains that could be home.

you pour me a cup before your own.

I remember how the tea tasted, because

you didn’t touch me. indifference can be

a kindness, sometimes. on my tongue:

specter of smoke, a vegetal bruising.

tannins drying the back of my throat.

winters, my grandmother sends me tea—

which tells me she loves me. I ask you

if she ever tells you this out loud, but

instead of answering, you smile slight,

you don’t kiss me, you sip your tea.

I lap at the pale ochre liquid in my cup,

breathe in the steam fanning my face.

& I make a joke about sex. or maybe it’s not

a joke. I turn sullen-silent when you pour

more tea in my cup, a stray leaf swirls

in the middle, what do I want from you.

& when we finish the pot of tea, we rise,

I say my goodbyes, but you insist on

walking me back to my dorm, where I

will collect my things, because they told me

I wasn’t welcome anymore, I wasn’t to come

back—a forced withdrawal for crazy.

this is not a fable about love, or sex—there is

neither makeout session nor moral of the story.

I never see you again. there is only the scent

of your grandmother’s gunpowder tea—

woody & dark, a smoldered green.