Day 1,006

Once you were able to walk
from your house
to your grandmother’s house
on summer mornings
and sit at her table
eating fruit from her garden.
Once you watched out her window
for birds: red birds, yellow birds.
You heard them call to each other
as your cousins began to call
to each other from their
upstairs rooms, and your uncles
walked through the kitchen
on their way to work.
Once you thought
this was the way things were:
sunlight, fragrance of jasmine
as doors opened and closed, footsteps
of those you loved …