Staceyann Chin

Brooklyn and Fall

The streets are growing
colder
again. women skirts drag heavy in the wind
again. scarves and seasons
go together

and the poems are coming
waves
of ink spewing self-righteous
from these human hands

hands
holding intentions raving
ego like a reflection

painted by the image
dark object
replicating dust like broken walls
dismantled dreams dancing slow in the breath of fantasy

what would I have been
had I gone the other way

had my mother not walked the path
that led her faithful
to care for this other child

this younger me
with German words in her mouth

this version of me
sibling
she is beautiful

and my mother had to leave me
to retrieve her

from another continent
she dreams of being achaeologist

and I have become dreamer
of things impossible

holder of women's truths
women's mouths vomitting the lies we were told

I have become my own struggle
tightening noose around my own neck

diviner of sands
rocks providing raft for floods

window become door
sometimes you have to step through an opening
held higher than you expected

window become door
sometimes you have to walk through
what you have only been looking through

humanity
is the season of imagination
changing
green leaves searing hot under the torrent of summer
darkening beautiful and red
falling white and wicked

winter is the long walk
towards he winds stillness

and I hold myself
eagle in its wake

spread hope and wonder above the blue water
I am home
in this air too cold to breathe

I can be home in my poems
in these crazy lines I address to strangers

home is the twisted lock of New York
wrapped round the slender strand of Jamaica

as I venture out
the world awaits and I begin again

this cycle of leaving
of coming home

home is where the last poem was read

denver
here I come
connecticut
sarah lawrence
boston
baltimore
chicago

stamford
all these poems

and nothing but cities
to pass through

in love and the joy of the places I have not been,
Staceyann

Posted by staceyann at September 20, 2004 09:36 AM