TO MY SONS

In the beginning,

your neighbors will come with plates

of expectations you are meant to eat from;

plates you're meant to lick naked of their contents—

even if the scent is as curry is to my nostrils:

a reminder of Maami's health quaking in my arms.

In the beginning,

man, in all his imperfections, will tell you where your

feet should study chemistry with the barren floor

in order for cows to birth milk, a child should run his tongue

over, and not crawl back into the hole it escaped out of.

In the beginning,

this damned world will tell you how your hair—

the beautiful darkness you're meant to carry around;

the one that belongs solely to you;

the one that reminds you the world is only a basin of water—

should sit on your oshúká.

My son,

carry yourself,

the complete one I was gifted from the pain of

his mother—for love, Finneas agrees, is pain—

and fasten the world around your belt.

And walk on the land where your legs yearns for.

Glossary

Oshúka — head pad

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