"Sidewalk Table" by Raziya Wang

Sidewalk Table
(a half-sestina)

If you invite me, we’ll sit at a sidewalk table,
spoon tiramisu and sip sparkling gold.
My sundress will flutter in the city summer,
and I’ll wear a silver necklace with a key
in the hollow at my throat,
my mother’s, when her future still hovered, a reverie.

You invite me, and in my reverie
we sit across a corner sidewalk table
and melt the icicles in our throats
with sips of sunset gold.
My necklace dangles a silver key
to our future that begins this city summer.

You invited me to dinner in the summer
when our future still hovered, a reverie.
You said, Our daughter will wear that silver key.
I already knew you at that sidewalk table,
your taste like sparkling gold,
a city sunset in my throat.

Raziya Wang

Raziya Wang is an Indian-American woman and part of the third generation of her family to be born in East Africa. She completed her undergraduate degree in English at Princeton University and then pursued her medical degree and training as a psychiatrist. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where she practices psychiatry, writes, and lives with her husband, two daughters, and an orange cat. This is her debut poetry publication.

Headshot: Charles Wang

Photo Credit: Staff