The Emigree - Carol Rumens

• There once was a country... I left it as a child but my memory of it is sunlight-clear
• It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants, but I am branded by an impression of sunlight
• That child's vocabulary I carried here like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar
• It lies down in front of me, docile as paper; I comb its hair and love its shining eyes
• My city hides behind me. They mutter death, and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight