I was as clear as her rows of shining glass,
tall bottles stashed under her sink.
I remember the day my name became Vodka in another country,
how she dared me to grip the bottle with little pale fists,
and I knew I would collapse and crawl inside the damage of a thirst.

I was still fresh then,
grown from the fronts of planes and the backs of cars.
I had never heard the sweeping of a different kind of gunfire,
had never heard the rage of a woman banging her fists against cement floors.

I thought myself noble,
crunching snails with my bare feet,
holding geckos in the sunburn of my palm,
letting them roast in the deadly of my heat.

I miss Gul's hair,
the way her mouth formed my name on a hardened tongue.
I used to watch her read backwards from books,
her fat nose was a brown weapon,
and her covered legs, a chai wonder.

I would wake to touch the bells of her yard,
sing, "Gul, Gul, Gul!"
until her head sprouted from the other side of the wall,
pinked, and
I would wonder where her tenacity came from,
the ability to hold the man, without want,
obligation piling her tough skin.

She was like a mother and I dreamed of her placenta
with me nestled inside,
but she squatted over holes, and took the back handed slap
of men, men, men.

She smelled of grease and tomatoes,
and when language failed us,
we would just smile,
teeth showing,
gnawing at the differences of choice and chance.

White girl,
she does not remember you!
Her paper napkins are collecting themselves on a shelf somewhere
she used to call home.

I hide my crosses,
bury my peaches inside the dried up earth,
because I was born from the desert instead,
where water only comes from bottles and milk from boxes.

I still live for the hope of water,
but when my organs shrink down to their exactness,
I will be savagely torn from the whole,
like ekmek,
with dirty hands.