Eric Tran

If I Call You Cousin I Love You / Palestine You Are My Cousin

My first cousin and me sailing on bikes
we plucked from our neighbors’ garbage heaps,
rust hugging the necks and elbows, our pockets full
of Saturday mango bits crusted with chili,
My cousin, my sometimes tormenter, sometimes mall companion,
sometimes refusing to be next to me in public,
sometimes disappeared for weeks, pierces
the air between us: 

         Would you care, he asks, if I got shot right now?

         Of course, I say. You’re wearing my jacket.

What an annoying child I am.
Once I stole a teal magnifying glass
from his room. When he caught me, he said,
Here—it’s yours.
That was our jacket. Our arms threaded through
like a secret way to embrace. Shared
like our name for each other—Cousin.
Our eyes seeing better, sharper,
our ears to hear the family story:
When the bombs dropped,
our mothers and aunts crawled into
the same bed to share
their final night together.
How could anyone bear this alone?
And here we are, survived
with and by each other.
Survived by, not how the obituaries say it,
but plain and childish. Free
from euphemism. Next to, inseparable.
One of us will make home
where the other grinds his teeth.
We dream while bare-assed
facing one ancient, table-top fan.
One of us will wake because the other left
the blinds open. Forgive us, whoever
it was. Here, the other will start the coffee.
Many hands make love
a less clumsy practice.