They mean climb the foothills of your hometown. The tallest one, where some teenage boys stuck one of their mothers gardening sticks into the summit, a torn jersey as a flag.
Sit there, dry mouthed, and think of the only boy who has made you feel safe, a kid who was always ashamed of the children around him, and himself.
Tasted soups are sweet, but those untasted
Are sweeter; therefore, fair Campbell, can on!
Wine-hued to the darkling gaze, free of stain
Upon the borders crisp. Logo pasted
Tight on metal sheer, caught by steely yawn
Of factory saw to rend the gourmet pane.
The hot medium of flames smacks
upward, whacks sheer eyes
with a stencil of blue and green.
There is a foreigner
on this shore.
From foreign lands, with
Foreign hands,
Knocking at my door.
4 pm sunlight carves golden frames on cream walls
a city, blue glass and white birds,
dances beyond
On my sixteenth birthday, I ask my mother if I can get a tattoo like hers on my wrist. Raising an eyebrow at me, she responds back, like she’s done, a thousand times before,
It’s not a tattoo, she says.
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