I Eat Poetry

Long Distance

Saba, I say. It's me.
He thinks I am my sister. I correct him twice,
then ask, How are you? The weather in Israel?

He asks when I will come see him.
Hanukkah, I say.
My birthday, he says.

His eye eyes the crumbs flung from my far-off shore,
where I splash my feet at the ducks,
instead of becoming

the ducks. The cotton button-down
hangs loose and wrinkled. Dried
apricots on the table, a cup of mint-leaf tea—

I can smell him. Something is burning
on the top of this mountain.

- Maya Pindyck