Coming Home After an Exile in Marriage

 

My mother cried when the passport man smiled at her.

Welcome home:

Two words to bridge an ocean of grief,

Three syllables to encircle her fingers,

Kiss her lips sweetly,

Cling to her clothes like the smell of English rain-

Hold her.

Just as the tarmac cradled her feet as she rocked back and forth, still at sea-

But home.

Six years old, I sat at her feet

And watched her peel like clementines at Christmas,

Saw her collapse into herself in a shivering of beingness

As she picked up her heart from baggage reclaim,

Dusted off the sand and swallowed it whole-

Her smile red and bloody-

She was home.

 

by Maria Malinowski