Appropriate

“Let us stay here, and wait for the future
to arrive, for grandchildren to speak
in forked tongues about the country
we once came from….”

~ Tishani Doshi, “The Immigrant’s Song”

What comes out of my mouth’s a tinny sound,
whatever comes out of yours is gold.

The mat my hungry sister wove three months,
you pay a handful of pennies for.

The dress that’s draped, metallic sheen
on shoulders of the mannequin, is cheap

as her perfume. Her legs, splayed open
in the dim boudoir, tell time rented

by the hour. You did not live that decade
when tanks rolled over bodies in the streets,

when martyrs lay in blood on concrete fields.
You did not see the bridges fall, the sky

explode with ashes. My solidarity, you cry;
you try to mimic, like a bird, the sounds

the fallen made. You gather stories not
your own and pin them to your breastplate.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.