While trying to describe

the colour of a night sky

framed by my office window,

 

you told me about chilis,

how you grew them

in the window of your flat,

 

a spot with enough light

to ignite fire in your fingers.

In the family of poisons,

 

food abounds – potatoes,

tomatoes, and red peppers,

their shapes like houses

 

sheltering coins of seeds,

sometimes a second fruit,

a fetus twin buried deep

 

inside a full-grown body,

the brother in a lung,

the nodule of a hidden sister,

 

an anomalous tumor

or sebaceous cyst –

when cut away, it smiles,

 

baring eyes and teeth,

aware that after years

it has been unmasked,

 

its skin a bloody aubergine,

a night sky above the city

ready to hatch seeds

 

rooted in our language –

words that feed or poison

waiting for the chance to grow.