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Room
There’s room for you here,
In this house you seem to hate.
Next to the fireplace where the portrait of Harriet Tubman hangs, or in the dining room, where Nina Simone spins lazily on the old turntable, her sultry voice singing of fruit and blood and being human.
There’s room for you here,
Though you keep saying the house is crumbling.
The bricks you pulled down will take some time to set right, but don’t worry, grandmother’s brewed you a cup of tea and it’s waiting in the mug she brought from the homeland, carried in a small suitcase embossed with the name she changed on Ellis island.
You best wash up, “right quickly now,” as she would say. We’ll have no dirt at the table, and your tea is getting cold. If needed she’ll reheat it for you, because there’s room for you here, in this house you seem to hate.
Now, I know you’ve said you don’t much care for the linens on our lumpy beds, but we’ll make up the couch if you’d like to stay the night in the room where we keep the books.
We’ve always called it “the library,” though the title’s a bit of a stretch. The books all live on mismatched shelves, their covers worn from repeated readings. But humble as it all may be, it’s welcoming enough. Bradbury, Hughes, and Wolfe keep company with Solnit and Hawking. They’ll keep you company too, if the night proves hard and sleep eludes.
There’s room for you here,
Though you’ll have to share it.
We’re not in the habit of enforcing exclusions. You’re welcome to fight if you must, just keep it in the yard and don’t track in the mud.
Be careful when you check the machine, there’s a message there from Harvey Milk that we just can’t seem to erase. It’s nice to hear his voice again from time to time.
There’s room for you here.
You’ve made no secret of your contempt, but still, there’s room for you here. When you need it, when you want it.
You see, we’re building the house faster than you can dismantle it, expanding and extending, making room for you and for your friends. But there’s room here, too, for the ones you’d rather forget. You won’t get your own room; we have to share.
But still, there’s room for you here.
Welcome
In dream after dream, grandmother came.
She smiled easily, casually, like she hadn’t left so long ago.
She said nothing, or little. But her red hair flamed and her green eyes laughed.
And for a moment I felt whole again.
Then I woke, aching in the empty place.
Only later did I realize she’d come back to fill it,
Carrying you to me in the arms I trust most
And planting you with fire and emeralds in this strange, beautiful, terrible world.
We’ve been waiting for you, welcome.
Do not be afraid, you are flanked on all sides by the love of thousands.
Threading
I want to take up threading—but I won’t.
My mother and grandmother and all my heroes threw down their needles and took up crossbows, pens, and plows—
perhaps a compass too.
The world is changing; it is made in my image.
Or if not mine, then a thousand faces that could me mine,
or yours.
And I am grateful, eager even, to mold this world with my hands, mind, words, voice.
But sometimes—sometimes I want to count one even stitch after another,
string one delicate bead onto the the last,
breathe deeply as I braid the grass in patient, slow movements.
Chopping wood and carrying water I can leave to men,
but I want to take up threading, and make of my day a simple task.
There are no simple tasks anymore, when even this could be rebellion.
I carry my ghosts
I carry my ghosts
with me
everywhere.
They are silent and cast no shadows.
I string them along
like kites,
fabric torn.
Their tails drip with unravelled bows.
A dishevelled parade
are we,
marching slow.
Me alive, with my dead all in rows.
“The Club”
Welcome to the club.
We have no handshake, no banner.
You will know us by our eyes, our sad smiles that say,
“I know. The black abyss that is yawning before you,
I know its depth, its darkness.”
It feels impossible that so many others have lived this hell before;
surely the world would have collapsed under such heaviness.
Let us share your portion of that weight.
Welcome to the club of grief, of loss
—of that thing inside your chest that has no name.
We never wanted you to join;
We’re glad you’re here.
theatlantic
