Spotlight: Immigrant
you have to learn to live with emptiness
my mother told me I drank water
when I was hungry I drank water
the way people hustle onto trains rushing to another city
the rain begins in one window
but always finds its way to all the others
your dog scratches at the white couch I brought with me
the only thing left of mine I can still touch
in this place stuffed with dreams that stopped talking long ago
we mistook the pelting of rain
and the refrigerator humming
and the sound of the mailman thunking our bills
into the box for our dreams still talking
your dog tears the fabric of my couch the way lightning
rips open the belly of sky so you can’t look at it without seeing
disaster
you call someone and they show up with a truck
hoist the couch out of the corner and into their arms and haul it out
the door I once entered hungry coins sewn into the stuffing
plunk to ground one by one and I think about what it means to follow
someone to the edge of nothing
the truck grumbles down our empty road the rain answers
you have to learn
I sweep the wooden floor bereft of its face
I mop the place the couch covered like clothing
I wipe the fat baseboard with a rag wet with rain
I am so quiet now your breath has its own language
I still don’t understand
