Home Is A Country

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 Home is a Country


with its own smells, 

and sites, and seals.


it's our children's 

mother tongue, 


a language they learn

long before they walk.


There, we honor our traditional

plates, our household gods, our funeral rites


home is a country, and like

all immigrants will tell you


while leaving may have been

the right choice, it's not without its 

costs.

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Morning Catch

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Morning Catch The western sky teals before sunrise the water breaks   World, now upside down reveals, calm sea the water stills Upward, my eye peels, as if a dolphin the water bursts   My body rises, my body feels stars slip  the water grey away.
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In the dream

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In the dream In the dream you are still here at your best, giving me what I want. The ache is still here too. Someone dies something is lost but not you. You call me “sweets” and hold my hand and smell like you always do good. I wake up and starfish, limbs stretching over your absence as if just to check. In the waking dream too then, you are never                        really gone. 
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Divorcรฉ Dream

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Divorcรฉ Dream  This morning I had a dream that there were two  of him, not one, that I’d lost two of mine, then two of my sisters, and he didn’t notice or care we’d been surrounded  by bad fakes. No one did, that is, unless I said something.  And saying it felt scary. Then again, what other choice did I have?  I told every woman I could. When I said it, my mom and sisters believed me. But saying it didn’t solve anything. In the dream, nothing did. I felt panicked, lost. That’s when I went inside myself,  In the dream, and cried “help!” In the dream, a small sun catcher wrapped in a homemade rose colored envelope- the kind my oldest daughter makes— Emerged.  In the dream when she floated above me  And unwrapped herself, I saw a small rainbow smiling, and it  said cheerfully “Hello, there. I can help.” Tearfully, I described them: first my nieces, then my youngest daughter. The love for them, the grief swelling hot in my chest and eyes. In...
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I found my poem!

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  I found my poem!   I’ve been looking for my poem all day,  and most of last night.  Checked for it under all the blankets  my kids left on the cold floor of our living room,  Kept my eyes peeled for it through  job postings with the city, the county, on Craigslist, Scratched for it the back corners of the fireplace where I stoke the embers to burn anew. Watched for it behind the blinking signal, the blinking cursor, the blinking light.  Dug around for it in that final yoga pose, that hug from my sister, those isles of paint and epoxy too.  Finally I sat. I ate. I gave up. I surrendered my deepest and darkest fears to the page and still, no poem. In defeat, I listened to the writing of my friends, Had the joy of them listening to some old verses of mine. Made jokes, got compliments, and let out some really girlish giggles to top it all off. And wouldn’t you know, my poem came then somersaulting in like I’d known it all along, and together we...
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I Don't Like Poems That Make Me Sound "Troubled"

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 I Don't Like Poems That Make Me Sound "Troubled" ~ If I am always going to be in trouble, I may as well  make it count.  ~ Instead of missing curfew by five minutes, I am on time ~ so drunk I have to crawl, hands and knees, to our front door. ~ Instead of staying up too late chatting on the phone, or internet,  ~ I am busted for sneaking away in broad daylight to meet that boy in the parking lot of our store.  ~ Instead of tardies,  I skip class altogether. ~ I get high in that neighborhood, watch raindrops race to merge on the pane. ~ If I am always going to be  in trouble, I may as well make it count.  ~ Does this count? ~ Does this?
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