Diaspora (for a friend)

 

You inspire me

in too many directions.

I am laughing onto pillows,

gurgling spit into screen.

 

Visions mangled between eyes,

quicktongued foreign gazes,

choked translations,

fingers trying to scratch past exile

rage,

do the work of diaspora.

 

But you insist you feel drawn to this,

find kinship and connection, bloodmemories that tell the future

as much as the past—

two strangers

not strangers

though we never knew it                        / only lack

was of us                                                  / ing the

we’d been dreaming                               / knowing

 

so far from my soul’s map,

I assent

feel the air around my writs and climb on:

 

Maybe this is a ride

back

to newness.