I will go Home, but where is
Home? – Yes, I will Run Away²
We Fade like Ghosts – into the
Broken Country on the Borders³
If you ask me where I’m From, I
Have to speak with Broken things⁴
No one puts their Child in a Boat –
Unless the Water is Safer than the land⁵
Memory has the Fragrance of a Weeping Night
Flower arousing in the Exile’s blood a need to Sing⁶
Death is the only Border Crossing still open to all⁷
What does an Immigrant call it when
They have No Home to go back to?⁸
Is Migration still possible if there
Is No other land to Arrive in?⁹
Old enough to guess Home
Is Gone if you went there¹⁰
¹ Saint-John Perse tr. Denis Devlin, Exile
² Richard Wright, Black Boy
³ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
⁴ Pablo Neruda tr. original, There’s No Forgetting
⁵ Warsan Shire, Home
⁶ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Munir Akash & Carolyn Forché, Mural
⁷ Ken Chen, Pre-Credit Sequence for the Film About the Camp
⁸ George Abraham, Counter-Terrorism
⁹ José Olivarez, Ars Poetica
¹⁰ Philip Whalen, Native Speech