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final confessions

for immigrant parents




you were taught       the inexplicable



you were taught the crimson
      myths, moral warnings
      of snakes and women on an earth
      far different from ours                        


             you were taught one too many                        



             you’re tired
             of listening                              
             so you pass them on
             towards me                             












                       





                                 the inexplicable gives me vertigo                     



gives me      a kink in my              
              neck and a panic
              in my throat                            
              a linen veil atop
              your hair falls now onto
              mine and I tumble
              forward, performing
              devout            
              hardwood creaks
              sustained by shaking hands






                       











        we were all brought up        on wonder
                                      and the many ways an ache
                                      can sit






and still, we are all parched
searching for droplets
of something to share
breaths of reason among
the madness and a way to make
time make sense





                       












            you find it in tradition      the prayers which



fail to change
I sometimes find it in the wind
but mostly
in an instinct
leaning towards a feeling or the
punch of knowledge past



                    and if the time is right
                    we can find it 
                    in a moonlit sky


                    the gaze of hopeful saplings,
                    intertwined, perhaps not
                    together but always
                    upwards



                                        the night aglow with holy stars