sundays in queens
i often think about
these sundays in queens:
the small walk-up that inexplicably resembles
my heart.
or maybe it’s my grandmother
who waves from the window.
i often think about
her crow’s feet and
sunspots from summer days
in a land across the sea.
what is home for an immigrant?
for her, i think
it is her very skin and bones.
i often think about how
i must have inherited her wide eyes,
her dimples, her sharpness.
what does it mean to live alone
without souls to collide with?
but her God lives beside her
in the planes of her shoulders,
in the curve of her brow.
my own faith is the thing
caught between my tongue and my teeth -
like an insect trapped in amber,
it sits without ambition.
but if there is a God
i wonder how many more sundays
we will spend
in a land across the cosmos.
what is home for the faithless?
for me, i think
it is my very heart.