to redo them last night,
but I’m gonna ask my granny
to do it today after school.”
Ready or Not?—After School—Granny’s Kitchen
My sixteen-year-old cousin T
breathes deeplyopposite me
at the kitchen table.
Silence has descended on
our previously heated conversation.
The heavy smell of curried goat
has fully settled into my clothes.
The still-hot pots sit on the stove
waiting for Granny to plate up
when she returns from picking up
Olivia and Sophia, my five-year-old
identical twin cousins, from school,
as she does every weekday.
T stands and towers over me.
He can only achieve this because I stay seated.
We’re the same height standing up,
but, right now, I feel stuck to my seat.
T has been bubbling and spilling over
for the past twenty minutes,
but now he’s softly simmering.
T’s deep voice is softer than before:
“What I don’t understand, cuz,
is why Jyoti said it so casually,
like it was common knowledge,
like she assumed I already knew.”
T imitates the voice of Jyoti,
