Let your poems simmer!

I've spent the past ten summers of my life in Ha'il, Saudi Arabia, where my dad worked as a college professor. My mom, my sisters and I moved to Pakistan, because education is a big problem there for people like us who never got the hang of Arabic. Anyway, my dad moved back home last year, which means no more vacationing in Saudi Arabia. I miss it, and I don't miss it. I miss the silence of the desert, how the ringing of the phone and doorbell was a special occasion, the hot, dry wind whipping my face, everyone dressed in black and white wherever you went. That's what summer will always mean to me. 

The summer air coils itself around our house

Winds along the white trunk of the eucalyptus tree

In our front yard

Whispers through its ghostly leaves

Makes them dance -just out of reach.

The summer wind licks my face

A candle flame, caressing me in the darkness.

It smells of dried-up twigs and withered leaves

Desert plants that have learnt to dream of water

Only once every few weeks

Some days when I'm early enough

I get to watch the summer sun

Peek over the edge of the mountains

A yellow tennis ball

Caught in a sky blue net

Fresh for the day's play.

The clouds skid past, night flickering into day. The sun

Rising and setting over these changeless mountains.

Every  moment as constant as the last.

I walk until my ankles strain

From carrying my weight around,

And in my mind, I go over

My summer diet and exercise plan

As flimsy as last winter's New Year resolution.

My sisters tame cats and their summer babies, and

At night we hunch over our playstation controllers

Hands sweating and fingers numb

From pressing too hard.

And when I sleep, it is always dreamless.

Here's another one.

This year, the weather's been 

as whimsical as me

Outside, the sky changes from pale blue

to vermilion, to streaks of grey.

And before you know it,

the year's almost up.

Steamy Asian days change seamlessly 

into steamy Asian nights.

I drive by Nandos and Dunkin' Donuts

and it refreshes my memory 

of you walking away from me.

Always 

walking away from me

Two years to the day.

Two years have escaped my timeline.

Seems like only yesterday,

but mostly like it never happened.