When I Drink Tea In New Jersey Poem by Faleeha Hassan

When I drink tea in New Jersey
Like a girl who writes poetry about a boy she has never seen My day sits with all this disappointment
Counting her fleeting moments
I remember my mother using the smell of onions
To shed her tears in the kitchen
For the absence of my father
Who climbed his life war by war
Whenever he wore his military belt
He wished that war was just an old shoe
He could take it off whenever he liked
And he didn't need to think of fixing it at the cobbler's shop
I remember my brother
Who asked in his letters-
When will the war understand that we are not good at dealing with death?I remember us forty years ago
We were kids, very much kids
With colorful clothes and hearts
It was enough for us to see a balloon
To drown in big laughterI remember all this nowWhen I drink my tea
And
I practice my loneliness.