A Letter to my Mother at Immigration

You will make a life here, 

like a wave carving out 

the side of a rock. 

You will make fossils of your memories 

for your daughter to find.

They will change your name; 

your daughter will call you 

by the one you are reassigned. 

And you will gladly answer to this name 

in exchange for the simple promise

that your daughter will be safe here. 

But she will not speak your language, 

she will not understand you, 

and she will deem you incomprehensible. 

Yet, you will try to hold her 

as she turns away from you 

in sharp, painful increments 

like the second hand of a clock. 

Your daughter will be lost to you. 

But do not despair—

for in the blink of an eye, 

she will come back to you 

with her sad, eloquent stories 

and no way to tell you.

You will make a life here, 

but it will not be yours. 

Your daughter will never consider this truth 

until one day, at the edge of the ocean, 

she will sense its vastness.