here And there

Home lives with the father and daughter

he gave you his eyes but you can’t see through them

in the things that have been said

And in the things that didn’t

Home lives in the shared loneliness

between you and your sister and sister and sister

Different versions of the same grief

Home lives with the delusion

that happens when you step in the country they once left

the color that comes back in your mothers face

the reconnection between woman and self

all the things she’s held

she’s now surrounded by

your mother was a girl here

and not there

your mother shows you love

Here and not there

Home lives in the absence endured

between your mother and her sister and sister and sister

Different versions of the same love

Home is in the aunt and niece

a lesson in femininity

the gold on wrists and ankles and fingers and ears

between the taking off and putting on

gold that now is on your wrists

and ankles and fingers and ears

the beauty taught between girls and women who used to be girls

In the i’ll braid your hair and you braid mine

Home is in the food on the floor

the first dinner you have with your cousins

how they talk about here

and you talk about there

and the ocean that is in between

in the adventures that were brought and told

And in the adventures that are to take and tell

Home is in the stillness of the dark

the village electricity that comes and goes

in the sudden stop of daily life

and in the absurdity that is shown when no one can see

a shared collective of when the earth stops moving

And the breath everyone takes in

Home is in the breeze

that the leaves feel first

heard then felt for us

as we sit outside and talk late at night

In the refusal of tiredness that kills conversation

Home is in the end

when we know one of us is leaving

in the release of what’s being held in the back of your throat

it’s in the desperation of the trying to memorize what they feel like

what this feels like

their skin and your clothes

what the eyes sees what the mouth can’t say

the hands holding your heart

and the air surrounding it all

it’s the recreation of the transactions you carry

and the continuation of it

in the how we know when things begin and when things ends

In between the beginning and ending and ending and beginning again

it lives in the quiet moments

the gentleness that comes with love

the shared whispers,

it’s in the air, the Conversation between breaths

Home is here and it is there and it is in between of there and here

it’s with you and it’s taken from you and given to you again

something you haven’t felt

is feeling

once felt