Expatriation III
By Rosemarie Dombrowski

The boat is rocking, and castor oil
coats the lining of our stomachs; the sea
(and everyone who drank from the bottle)
is sick. Even the air in the room
smells schizophrenic, the moon in reverse
on the puddle of water.

We measure our worth in cidis, so we
spend the afternoon translating words
into units: the slave ships
looping the screen, the Atlantic
maddening under crests of memory.

A few streets away from the seamstress,
a man in a booth sells bootleg wine.
Everything worth finding requires the
crossing of state lines: sparklers, palm wine,
endangered animal hides.

In this hemisphere, the sky sings
lullabies to the villages; the
cocoas fall like percussion.

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