In my dream I am familiar.

I hold the memory of my father

in my hand― this is how I grow chrysanthemum

for the scars I carried for all these years.

Put a sugar in a boy’s mouth and words grow into flowers.

Birds settle by my window and draw before me

the lines between staying and leaving:

you know when the ground and shores heat you hot,

you grow the want of departure. I know

my mother’s stares halo and point me away from the sea.

Put me in a corner

and trace the feelings garnered over the years.

Sometime ago, my siblings and I drew our hurt

on a board at our backyard and blended shame out of it.

Yesterday, I shared drinks with my friends who wanted me

to trace the globe at a sitting. A string of past melodies plots me

into a graph; I look out of the window and you do not answer.