Читать книгу Oceanic - Aimee Nezhukumatathil - Страница 14

from The Rambutan Notebooks

Remember the archipelago even in shadow-time.

Remember in spite of all the storms, it’s still there,

full of sapodilla and salt. Remember the taste

will be just under your tongue when you rise up

and fight. Barbed wire and a gumbo-limbo tree

call you home, call you teeth and visitor. Each visit

here means a memory spill of your mother.

If a girl is retrieved from clouds, then what

is her throat now, what is her wrist and ear?

Where will she call home now?

I have been studying the word home

as if studying for a quiz, trying to guess

answers to questions before they are asked.

Soon a slight foam appears under a frog,

a promise of leg kick, a pulse toward

shelter even if all she sees now is mud.

I won’t ask the rambutan about its messy hair.

I know you are tired of trying to flatten

your hair into something it is not. When

it is meant to flap and fly in the wind-salted air.

Unplug the iron. Let questions of what is beauty

and what is not-beauty fruit down your back.

Sometimes it is possible to still embrace

the wildness of home, even if the lone window

in your room only blooms snow and more snow.