The Sun and Flowers, My Heaven's Neighbors

A stateless rain             beats across

The scaffolding of my apartment

They’re               here

Bearing gifts of knowledge

I turn a mahogany cheek to                     in

This plasticky, overdone jungle

My desire to clutch assimilation            between

Cracked hands, bitten nails

Separates me from my                              ancestry

Makes the foxtail grass cave in on itself

An armadillo to the intolerant eyes                      of the world

It runs over and             through me

On a day that breathes a          stream of optimism

More so than its former and latter

I take myself on a one-way trip              without destination

Directed at the tapestry above

Strewn with fabrics                    of flamboyant

Glitzy stars

Each with a wrinkled face of past                        generations

Neighboring the sun and touching

Scarred interstellar dreams                   on Jupiter

And Saturn

I am a girl without country                      when I neglect

My home, my birthplace

My         origin

I slip out of the embrace

Of those I feel but                       never see

Their mouths go dry, their lips crack,

And their throats bruise            black

Trying to call to me

They tried         to warn me,

Of the azure eyes bearing poisonous hemlock

But I                     never listened

Allowed my ignorance

So syrupy and sweet                   on desperate tongues

To envelop conscience, shank hearts

And muddle                      better judgment

While I work for               a lesser master

They counted stars

The purest         currency for promise

No pinky swears

Just feet           pounding on the soil

And hands groping at the sky

Begging for a                  response

Maybe I’ll see                  them again

Half a century from now

Adorned            in silk robes

Tattooed with chamomile and lilac

A crown of gold and remembrance

Kissing their                   precious and seasoned temples