The Emigree

Question 1

There once was a country… I left it as a child

Answer 1

but my memory of it is sunlight-clear

Question 2

The worst news I receive of it cannot break

Answer 2

my original view, the bright, filled paperweight.

Question 3

It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants,

Answer 3

but I am branded by an impression of sunlight.

Question 4

The white streets of that city, the graceful slopes

Answer 4

glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks

Question 5

That child’s vocabulary I carried here

Answer 5

like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar.

Question 6

It may by now be a lie, banned by the state

Answer 6

but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight.

Question 7

I have no passport, there’s no way back at all

Answer 7

but my city comes to me in its own white plane.

Question 8

My city takes me dancing through the city

of walls.

Answer 8

They accuse me of absence, they circle me.

Question 9

My city hides behind me. They mutter death,

Answer 9

and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.