WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND
My father drank salt water mixed with air
And sacrificed his legs and calloused hands at the altar of the sea,
So that it may split in half to give me the life he had only dreamed of.
Immigrant was the first name he was called.
He would say he is a man of faith first,
And I would say he is first a man of good heart
He wraps his baby boys in American flags but dreams in tigrinya
and his heart beats blood in hues of saffron and golden threads
I wonder if he remembers the smell of his sisters,
The plushness of his bed
Or the vastness of those fields
If he misses even the sewers …
Don’t call me an immigrant
Call me a blossom bearing tree,
robed in petals of pink and white
Call me sunny butterfly
With swallowtail
He still smells of boat rocks
The raw beating of an immigrant’s son
made news this morning.
Maybe if love was purer,
like it was before the bombs and the bullets,
when the smallest bugs whispered those great nothings of romance,
then we could all find what we’re looking for
son, look before you step:
the globe’s ill—
brother, the great dove’s ready
to fly without perch’ng!
the world’s ill—
son, a live goat
shall be eaten up by a dead rat
An immigrant’s son was beaten the other day.
My father’s immigrant son, beaten the same way.
—from 2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology
__________
Why do you like to write poetry?
Abby Habtehans: “I like to write poetry because it allows me to learn so much about myself and puts shape to the thoughts in my head.”
