You Say You’ve Never Left Home?

by Kelly Rowe

Have you been a step-child?

Then you’ve travelled, arrived in the dark

in a foreign city where you couldn’t

understand a word anyone said.

But what if you stayed for years,

learned the maypole dances, how to cook

the sweet and salty holiday dishes,

knew the punchlines of every joke?

You’re still pretty sure that the splinter

lodged in your throat is a sign to those

who took you in, that in hard times

it will be you chosen to walk out of the city

and on to the border, passing,

with head down, the coffee shop

with the scent of cardamom,

where every day you hear the quiet

rolling of “R”s, that rounded flutter,

and the national anthem you practiced

until your thick tongue danced,

held tight on its leash like a bear.