Girls Are Kissing

It’s mid-May and I’m still writing sad poems,
but who cares,
let’s talk about something else.

Today, my friend created some courage
from the deep parts of herself and, for the first time,
asked a girl on a date.

Oh! My friend was so blushed and
scintillating that her voice practically
shined through the phone.

Why must we spend another long day
thinking about sad things when, despite the risk,
girls are brave and kissing in public

and our world is flirting
with the sun again,
inching closer and spinning.

Maybe your mother’s God isn’t real
and maybe the boy has already moved on,
but, for now,

if you look outside,
you’ll see the light
is laughing.

Nearly Invisible Things

Just the other day, I almost didn’t see
a melting droplet of cheese reaching, reaching, reaching

for the plate below it, as if the plate were
something like nirvana, or a place to rest, or a softer earth.

Such a small thing, this droplet of cheese,
but I found myself in awe and smiling, wondering

about the possibility of other nearly invisible things.
Like a woman on the street, red-dressed and fearless or

the inch of world peace found in forgiveness or
my mother getting on her knees

to whisper into the ground, to privately utter a million
Yoruba thank you’s, to tell her God she loves me

or, or, or the possibility of the person
I am missing these days, like me

also sitting alone at night, also remembering,
also craving, also wanting so badly to call

and say hello, maybe laugh at the natural awkwardness,
maybe share a joke to ease it all,

maybe introduce the new selves we’ve become
with the time we’ve spent a part, or maybe just stay

silent and try to enjoy the sound of distance,
and then before the end of the call,

before returning to the dreadful in between stage of
moving on, the person I am missing these days,

maybe, just maybe, with the same possibility of
nearly invisible things, with gentleness says,

Yes, yes
I am missing you too.

Loré Yessuff