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Poem

Roots Without Soil

I.
I keep my mother's spoon in my suitcase—
silver worn thin from stirring cardamom tea,
its handle curved like her thumb
pressing into my palm those last mornings.
Now I stir instant coffee with plastic,
the bitter dust settling like ash
from stations where no train returns.

II.
The grocery clerk asks for my name twice.
I spell it slowly, letter by letter,
my grandmother's lullaby
becomes a grocery list
in foreign syllables
that cut sharp against teeth
never meant to hold my name.

III.
At the laundromat, I fold
my father's shirt—still blue,
still holding the shape of his shoulders.
The woman beside me
whispers mi amor to her daughter.
I swallow the Persian words
I want to say to no one,
feel them burn like gravel
in my throat, unspoken.

IV.
Here, trees grow straight and silent,
never bent by desert wind.
Back home, jasmine vines
strangled fence posts in their hunger,
roots so desperate they cracked
concrete, split foundation stones
just to taste water again.

V.
I practice the algebra of forgetting:
subtract the call to prayer at dawn,
divide the taste of dates by distance,
multiply silence
by the weight of unsaid words.
But my dreams still count in Persian,
and I wake with my first language
thick as date syrup
on a tongue that claims forgetfulness.

VI.
Tonight, my hands still brown from the sun
I left behind, I plant mint
in a coffee can, its leaves curled
like my mother's fingers
when she counted prayer beads.
I whisper in the language
I'm learning to bury:
"Grow stubborn. Grow wild.
Teach this foreign dirt
that we were never meant
to be tame."
The first green shoot
breaks through soil like a promise
I'm finally ready to keep.

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