Immigration
Robert Okaji
The hill’s shoulders, slumped under the sky’s glare.
Hardscrabble and brown grass, insects chirring.
Voices in the still leaves.
I ask the boy if he would like water,
some bread. Fruit. No, he says, I must go.
The sun flares on the barn’s metal roof. A history
of stray thoughts, of complicity and calloused hands.
One tired cloud lingers overhead.
I sharpen my knives, think of cold beer.
Of finding home where no one knows me.
Where snow falls and wood burns cool.
And other incessant dreams.
