Pre-Partition luggage tag
for the ancestral round-trip
Attendant sees my belly and lets me board early
with the still-complete families
Lahore traffic clouds my open eyes,
the only part of me that can pass
When storm-windowed shut, they only
dream in American and only
got here by exhausting the question:
How much of Daughter’s climate is negotiable?
Slashes of jet lag until life rhymes:
The oven an unaging beast
My frozen stomach thaws and feasts
Ten days cut shorter by warping east
Then time to vaporize, says my iPhone priest
My toes touch grandma’s when we hug goodbye
Under the floorboards hushes a treasure that lawyers can’t split
But it’s over the weight limit
Written by: Matt Luedke
Matt Luedke is a former editor of Forum who continues to be inspired by the writing community he’s found through CCSF. He has also been published in Prairie Light Review and Ripples in Space. Links to his published works are at mattluedke.com.
Metrô Sumaré, Photograph, by Vincent Calvarese
Vincent Calvarese is a visual artist who photographs his travels. This photograph is from an art installation, Estação Sumaré (Sumaré Station) in Saô Paulo, Brazil’s Metro System, by Alex Flemming
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