Brushing Teeth

by Martin Bemberg

It is only every day I think of ours.
Yes, right after I googled your name and found the poem,
Which you wrote, it turns out, in elementary school,
I brushed my teeth on the toilet and wished I could say
It was cathartic.

It is only every day that I think of ours,
Which, split by two seas at the very least
Grew by exponents with every looming disadvantage,
Skipped decline, went straight to dying,
And recur in me while waking,
Having not been purged in sleep.

Because of you, and only you,
I knew the mere Bosporus between two continents,
Between my West and your East,
But now and only now do I see the Atlantic, The Europe,
A slight Maghreb and a faint Mediterranean
Between our fixéd feet.