Crumbs

We tiptoe when it rains. Desperate to avoid alley tiles central and fractured; teetering and ready to sling, slapping our ankles with sludge pooled and waiting just beneath.

Licorice-flavored cookies pinched and puckered, slick and brown as dog shit, spice scent indolent in tight souk streets; lingering sesame and cinnamon.

Kasbah corners dyed focally darker where tripping old men face the tall copper creases, lifting twilled djellabas to release acrid streams.

At times not even trying to avoid the thick, throbbing souk. Comforted by the purposefulness, the human heat of the throng. Folded into snaking masses. Mistaken as French. Mistaken as Spanish.

But lately thoughts of Michigan penetrate. Wooden colors so dark it’s always dusk past a clearing. Asphalt unravels, backroad fringe of loosed gravel. Center lines faded, tar patches like skin grafts. Light filters cautiously, through branches, through panes. Fat birds on repeat in the blue-yellow kitchen and sharp prism rainbows thrown seemingly without origin. Thinly carpeted stairs too steep, the smells musty and soothing. Jigsaws and doilies. Butterfly coasters with broken wicker weaves. Paneling, pictures, windmills, cattails, stuffed shells. Waxed rutabaga and pasties in foil. Blankets and soft beds, mason jars in a line. Snakes torn on driveways. Humidity. Dust.

And always “You betcha.”

But this is not my family. “Lulu” cradling her husband with her eyes, waiting, craving to carry his many lisping babies. Her sister-in-law chewing with teeth like square ice chips, a soft spot of grey rot coloring the front two’s divide.