By James Sallis.<\/p>\n
Second Generation<\/strong><\/p>\n I thought of you as I drove through I thought how you worked to build a life trying out turns of phrase: head tilted just so, Traveling Light<\/strong><\/p>\n We are all guests in the language; How will you support yourself while here, one visitor answers. I offer These all seem to you good answers. Little Sister<\/strong><\/p>\n This is what my life comes to, then. Ten yearsittle Sister Memory<\/strong><\/p>\n In what corner of morning When walls turned to chalk What was it you bent What have you carried home inside you Finding Home<\/strong><\/p>\n Now at last you can set down Its place is here, after all, here Bus pulls into station, my suitcase Now at last you can unpack this loose second skin
\nthe war, face turned from the train’s window
\nbeyond which lay bodies steaming from their wounds
\nin the chill of morning.<\/p>\n
\nof borrowed habits, half-forgotten turns: preserves
\ntaken from others’ shelves. How you were forever
\nat rehearsal, trying on these new skins and masks,<\/p>\n
\nhands held thus. How even now you go on studying
\nthese strange people, this race, this species
\namong which you do not fit and will never belong.<\/p>\n
\narrive at the border with
\nold schoolbooks, vaccination cards, comics
\nwhose panels are drawn at strange angles.<\/p>\n
\nwhile in our country? the guard asks.
\nIs this your first visit?<\/em>
\nI will be earning American dollars<\/p>\n
\nthis letter of credit from my bank
\nin Argentina, another explains.
\nOnce before here I have been.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nNow it is your turn. Words,
\nprotect me!<\/em> And if not words,
\nthen all the possible misunderstandings.<\/p>\n
\nof moving things from hamper to hanger
\nand back, excuses to your mother and mine on the phone,
\ndaytime TV. And not once
\ndid I take up your time unless I had to,
\nwhen Father died, when Lauren refused to wake up
\nin the hospital. You were always in Germany
\nor in seclusion, or at a meeting; your time
\nwas important, and your life. When we spoke,
\nit was as though by notes
\nthrown between windows opened for their passage
\nand quickly closed, windows against which,
\nafterwards, I would place my hand,
\nfinding what comfort I could in the warmth of the glass.<\/p>\n
\nDid you encounter that horror of dawn
\nBreaking on the panes<\/p>\n
\nAnd lights came yellow behind windows<\/p>\n
\nTo pick up from the walk and the sea
\nA shell lamenting some used-up life<\/p>\n
\nFrom the bank of morning<\/p>\n
\nthe luggage of the heart.<\/p>\n
\nwhere years ago you wrote:<\/p>\n
\nentering first your nation,
\nthis new content and continent.<\/p>\n
\nthe luggage of the heart,
\nroll up and put away
\nthese ill-fitting clothes,<\/p>\n
\ntoo long lived in.<\/p>\n