Diaspora Sonnet Traveling Between Apartment Rentals
By Oliver de la Paz
What made the grammar of our early years,
moving from place to place, house to flimsy
house, was the meaning made between us, here
and there, and wherever or whenever
we moved. The windows chafed. Father pushed boards
with his palm to make the concavity
recede into dust. The blight in the siding
spoke loudly. In its shape, it said “Here is
my body.” It said, “Here the rain moves across
the rippled wood like a horse through the plains.”
My father’s words, shaky foundations:
shelter was a noun in sentences racing
past my ears. The verb was family —
the object, swept and scrubbed, leaving no trace.