The Emigree

• (1) "There once was a country... I left it as a child/ but my memory of it is sunlight-clear"
• (2) "It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants,/ but I am branded by an impression of sunlight"
• (3) "That child's vocabulary I carried here/ like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar"
• (4) "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."