On June Blossoming in June by Karen An-hwei Lee

This summer, we drank cardamom iced tea sweetened with agave—

savoring an idea of sweetness lingering, not as if we actually ate honey

from the lovely overflow of  liquid summer heat and soft beeswax

tongued with a wedge of spanakopita and a platter of shaved lamb

            strewn on pita bread with yogurt cucumber dip—

glistening slices of salmon topped by edamame, wakame seaweed,

crushed macadamia nuts mingled with black sesame on beds of rice,

and steaming cups of chai with black tea and milk, loose-leaf sencha,

and chunks of sea bass with a tossed mesclun of tender greens

                                      garnished by crisp curls of chicharrónes

and chopped beet salad with tart beets—the mellow gold ones

soaked in wine vinegar, dressed with tendrils of microgreens—

corollas of night-blooming honeysuckle and star jasmine flaming

with small cups of  heady fumes wafting on trellises across the lot

                        with a walk-in hair salon and laundromat—

then avocados with eggs-over-easy in hollandaise sauce over muffins

alongside triangles of toast dipped in yolks beaten with cinnamon,

            and flavorful black coffee with a drop of fresh cream,

quiche with crimini mushrooms, feta, swiss cheese, not leeks or truffles,

shot through with julienned sundried tomatoes the color of stop signs,

and mocha spiced with chili, black pepper, chocolate, cardamom again

by a plate of smoked salmon and capers, ricotta, buttery arugula,

and baby spinach drizzled with olive oil on thin sourdough toast

                        in glowing strokes of  late June light

fringed by the noise of peninsula traffic on the harbor

            laced by grease and silt from the machinery of  life—

the sea isn’t far away though only gulls could spy it from here—

so why don’t we walk all the way to the inlet of the marina, a landing

where children play in the fading light blanched on grassy edges

                        as if already a memory of summer within summer—

and you say, with the air of a prophet who ate locusts and honey,

join me in the place where lives are bound together

by a cord of three strands.