sweet sicily

tastes like liquorice when you pluck the stalk

and peel it. fresh and crunchy, a soft wet

green. I ate some and thought of how many

times you took a bite. It’s so green here

it’s no wonder you painted the living room

that colour. Brush strokes you left behind;

greens, blues, and pinks. I think about

repainting when we move out, but I hope

that we don’t. The planter boxes you painted

are too full of kale and borage. The rose

bush is growing taller every summer. I think

of you when my lover puts a jar on the curb

full of blooms labeled free. I think of you when

a passerby’s face lights up at being given

permission to take a beautiful thing.

You were always offering;

your space, your time, your food. Meals

would tumble out of the fridge and onto

plates fully formed — the cooking seemed

like an afterthought.

You grew up in Kaslo, and we’re waiting at

the ferry to go over to Crawford Bay. How

many times did you do this exact wait? It

feels like I could look over and you’d be

sitting in the car next to us. Standing on the

ferry deck with the wind pulling your hair up.

I’m drinking cheap coffee from the ferry

coffee shop, and I’ve never felt more like

I’m seeing a ghost. Tendrils of tattoos crawling

from under your sleeves, the twists

of sweet sicily leaves imprinted on your skin.

Did you ever photograph your tattoos? The

photos are all that’s left, bits and pieces

scattered in photo albums and cellphone

SIM cards. A photo of you laughing,

surrounded by cherry blossoms, waits to

go up on the fridge you had covered in

friends and collages and notes and stickers.

The flat of oat milk you bought from Costco

is still in the cupboard, feeding our friends

through crepes and coffee well into the next

fall. Some of those things are still in the back

of cupboards and the bottoms of drawers—

pieces of you we could never get rid of.

You’re still in the nooks and crannies, the glue

holding these walls together when we’re laughing

and drinking tea on the couch. You would love

the rainbow bouquet of garden flowers in the glass jug

on the coffee table, the new art prints on the walls,

the ceramic compost bin covered in slugs

and a large frog. We put your pottery wheel on the side

of the road and hoped whoever took it

would craft lopsided mugs like you.

We still have an unfired ceramic plaque you

made of the Sator Square- a Latin palindrome

I later discovered. Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas.

The sower holds the wheel with care. I want to put

it up on the wall to remember it’s always important

to care, backwards and forwards. About the friends

and plants you left behind, about the strangers

you didn’t get to meet. We pulled the borage

out of the garden, mulched the boulevard

to plant anew in spring. Sea blush painting

the dirt with fresh blossoms. There will be

another jar of roses on the corner this summer

and another summer with your picture

on the fridge. More weeks where you’re

just a picture, on just the fridge.

The living room is still green, though.

We hold your memory with care, like a

stalk of sweet sicily. A taste of liquorice,

fresh and crunchy.

Emmett MacMillen (they/them) is a queer, trans nonbinary writer, performer, and producer living in Victoria, B.C.