“AAA”
My grandfather had a AAA sticker
On the back of his green mini van
Only he didn’t understand what AAA was
So he put the sticker on upside down
“What is VVV,” I asked my dad
He frowned and said nothing
I was always afraid
Of being home alone at night
Of the blackness of my parent’s closet
Of my grandfather’s teeth
Stained dark from decades of cigarettes
And his deep raspy voice fighting anyone who spoke to him
Heard again from a tape player
Through a mausoleum
On a bright Florida day
I didn’t understand the language
But I understood that it was poetry
And in that moment I knew
What I still know
I am my father’s daughter
Forgiving the mistakes of my ancestors
But stuck with the bumper sticker decisions they made
Upside down in the way we feel
But spending hours on poetry
Fighting for our lives
Walking into our parents’ closets
And turning on the light
“Suhareke at Dusk”
When smoke rises from chimneys
and bright blue sky melts into soft cream,
Albanian mothers call their children
to come in for dinner.
Some days the mountains seem touchable.
If I just reached out my hand
I could trace their tops with the tip of my finger
or scoop them up and hold them in my palms.
Today I walked alone through the forest.
The snow had melted and the sun was out,
A January miracle.
I walked the paths up the hillside, and I felt afraid.
At the top of that hill the trees clear
and grapevines go for miles.
The mountains seem far then.
From there they tower over me.
At the top of that hill there was an old man with a cow.
He startled me and the three of us stared.
Then I turned around and walked away.
I don’t often walk the hill alone, too many starers.
I begin to regret your absence
when smoke rises from chimneys,
when old men and young men and cows stare at me from behind trees,
when I feel the coldness of the mountains in the palms of my hands.
When I begin to regret your absence
it is because my mother is not here to call me for dinner.
It is because the mountains are towers, crumbling.
It is because I am afraid.