Brown love is getting the pat down but not the secondary screening

and waiting after you clear to make sure the Sikh man or

the Black woman or the hijabis behind you get through



Brown love is asking the Punjabi guy working at the starbucks knockoff

if all the tea sizes are still the same price

and he says no,

it hasn’t been like that for at least four years,

but he slips you an extra tea bag without talking about it.



Brown love is the unsmiling aunty

at the disabled immigration line

barking

anything to declare? No? No? Have a good day.

and your rice, semolina, kari karo seeds and jaggary all get through

even though they are definitely from countries

where there are insects that could eat america to the ground



Brown love is texting your cousin on whatsapp asking

if she’s ever had a hard time bringing weed tincture in her carry on 



brown love is a balm

in this airport of life



where, if we can scrape up enough money

we all end up

because we all came from somewhere

and we want to go there

or we can’t go to there but we want to go to the place we went after that

where our mom still lives even though we fight

or our chosen sis is still in her rent controlled perfect apartment

where we get the luxury of things being like how we remember

we want to go to the place we used to live

and even if gentrification snatched the bakery

with the 75 cent coffee where everyone hung out all night

we can still walk the block where it was

and remember



and the thing about brown love is, nobody smiles.

nobody is friendly. nobody winks. nobody can get away with that

they’re all silently working their terrible 9 dollar an hour

food service jobs where tip jars aren’t allowed

or TSA sucks but it’s the job you can get out of the military

and nobody can get away with being outwardly loving

but we do what we can



brown love is the woman who lets your 1 pound over the 50 pound limit bag go

the angry woman who looks like your cousin

who is so tired on the american airlines customer service line

she tags your bag for checked luggage

and doesn’t say anything about a credit card, she just yells Next!

Brown love is your tired cousin who prays you all the way home

from when you get on the subway to when you land and get on another.

This is what we have

we do what we can.

Allah, you gave us a language

where yesterday & tomorrow

are the same word. Kal.

A spell cast with the entire

mouth. Back of the throat

to teeth. Tomorrow means I might

have her forever. Yesterday means

I say goodbye, again.

Kal means they are the same.

I know you can bend time.

I am merely asking for what

is mine. Give me my mother for no

other reason than I deserve her.

If yesterday & tomorrow are the same

pluck the flower of my mother’s body

from the soil. Kal means I’m in the crib,

eyelashes wet as she looks over me.

Kal means I’m on the bed,

crawling away from her, my father

back from work. Kal means she’s

dancing at my wedding not-yet come.

Kal means she’s oiling my hair

before the first day of school. Kal

means I wake to her strange voice

in the kitchen. Kal means

she’s holding my unborn baby

in her arms, helping me pick a name.

^{Meaning: stranger, one without a home and thus, deserving of pity. Also: westerner.}

on visits back your english sticks to everything.
your own auntie calls you ghareeb. stranger

in your family’s house, you: runaway dog turned wild.
like your little cousin who pops gum & wears bras now: a stranger.

black grass swaying in the field, glint of gold in her nose.
they say it so often, it must be your name now, stranger.

when’d the west set in your bones? you survive
each winter like you were made for snow, a stranger

to each ancestor who lights your past. your parents,
dead, never taught you their language—stranger

to everything that tries to bring you home. a silver sun
& blood-soaked leaves, everything a little strange

& a little the same—like the hump of a deer on the busy
road, headless, chest propped up as the cars fly by. strange

no one bats an eye. you should pray but you’re a bad muslim
everyone says. the Qur’an you memorized turns stranger

in your mouth, sand that quakes your throat. gag & ache
even your body wants nothing to do with you, stranger.

how many poems must you write to convince yourself
you have a family? everyone leaves & you end up the stranger.