Origin Story of an Immigrant Father

Let me tell you something about

this land they say we belong to.

When I was young I held my children

by their teeth. We watched a fog settle

on the mountains behind our village

like dust on my finger. I scooped earth

and packed it tight around my neck

for some warmth, let one child and

one child hang from each shoulder.

The way I floated down that mountain

you would not believe, light as sweat,

some shameless messiah. You closed

your eyes when I whispered to you how

the sun will warm your skin in the morning,

how we sank our weight into bruise-water.

There’s no bible to this sea. We treaded

for hours, this water religious and deep.

I held you both above the surface,

offered you to some foreign land where

you may hold table salt like language

in your mouth and let it froth and froth.