We didn’t come here
for the advertised welcome,
for the billboards that say
Virginia is for Lovers or Big
Sky or Liberty & Prosperity,
The Way Life Should Be…
Though they sold us
more than a century ago
with talk of milk and honey,
we’ve known only the strife
of the wary, the constant
sacrifice of both our innate
beauty and capacity for sadness:
as if, if we worked long and hard
enough, we’d hew a dwelling
out of our bravest hopes
and ambitions; as if, if we
turned the other cheek or shut
our eyes, our parents would not
be handcuffed and taken away
by border agents; as if our nomad
hearts could find a place to arrive.