My mother mourns leaving her own country so deeply it runs through her veins into mine. Bangladesh is what she knows and what she loves. She spends her time showing me her culture: spinning through dances, running through poetry, and wading through history.

The sound of the train past midnight

And a clear sort of light seek my room and cheeks

Leaving the layers of darkness, moon, and house light stale and stark

As if the lighter colored sheaths of air in the dark are unbreathable

Egg-yolks blooming in serenity

baba’s palms turn upwards

black dirt falling on the sun.

The fruit of baba’s hands

covered in spines

twisted but not the wicked way

that punctures skin.

Serpentine limbs extend in search of

sometime before the clock hit eleven,

i thought of you.

i imagined the threat your caressing fingers possess

as they trace targets on the side of my belly.