close all the windows  and let
the onions soften
exhale their old life into these walls
let the cinnamon stick
sink and languish
with whatever ghosts

split this home
they may flicker the lights
dig cracks into the windows
and we will float
bay leaves in a pot of beans
makhlouta  mixed
the long dwellers and the past
half living  even ghosts
traverse body  or brick before arriving
the way we bound  from Beirut to Cyprus
Philadelphia and New Jersey

forgetting the lamb bone  still on the stove
coming up for air  over and over
and sinking back down
to love the water  over and over

flick  the rose water
on all the glass  wrought from
ancestral dirt  a ghost
is anything  that remains  and this home
is not rented is not sprout  in a field of war
this can be left  with our claw marks
and our bites and our bodies sleeping
the rice has softened
and the pot is rife with spices
all to tell the ghosts  freely hanker
this can be ours together
collect and gather  for dinner
you have had a long way here

Philipe Abi Youness is a Lebanese-American poet, theatre artist, and educator. His work is featured or forthcoming in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Maps for Teeth, PANK, and Sukoon magazine. Philipe is a graduate of Drew University, where he won the Academy of American Poets Prize. He was recently named honorable mention in the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Competition. As a teaching artist, he has taught workshops in Beirut, the Bronx, Manhattan, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York State.