On Belonging

/I/

My parents and I were born to parents

Who told stories of a homeland left behind

In a language trickled down.

One generation’s nostalgia turned

Into another’s endless summer vacations.

Some of these tales I forget. Some I let trickle further down -

Those were the ones, I think

They told more than once.

/II/

I speak to a delivery man who hears an accent.

He tells me we share two other languages

So I needn't go to the trouble of talking to him

In what I grew up thinking was my

Mother-tongue, language of a land I’d never known.

All I’m capable of coming up with

Is an unaccented laugh.

/III/

To claim the land I grew up in as my own

Is acceptable to none. For I've belonged

Elsewhere all the time I've been here

And elsewhere when I'm there; elsewhere

All the time I speak my language,

And elsewhere all the time I try to belong.