XVII.

When I did go home

—briefly, to bury my father—

my mother rifled through my suitcase,

holding up bits of straw

and a sweatshirt she knew wasn’t mine. 

I didn’t answer the arch in her brow.

I tucked them back into my heart, 

at the sandy bottom of my bag, where they belonged.

Fabric and grain stalks 

were all I had left.