He gave me a
book of poems
and short stories
random ramblings
by a descendant of my grandfather’s
drunken lineage.
As if this was
enough.
A touching gesture, sure, for
a man
completely unaware
of the cost
of his actions.
Such poor wayfaring stranger I was
in that land of mine.

The book felt cool in my hand
written by someone
I won’t know
didn’t know
didn’t want to know.

Close by
his parliament of finches
owls and egrets stood
waiting to hear
waiting to catch
a fish
or a worm

waiting to remind me
that I was too dirty
for my own kind to marry me

only foreign men would do
those without motherlands
without ancestors
and without ancestral trees.