The homecoming

The way your body is attuned to the country you one day left.

The way your heart beats safer

seeing the familiar shapes from your window, just as you land.

The way your feet are steadier, responding to the soil beneath them,

to that rhythm you thought you imagined.

The way your skin is clearer,

your eyes are a bit brighter,

the mysterious ways in which your allergies disappear.

The way even your hair,

the unruly mess you scold with a very pink and very mean hairbrush,

is looking softer,

and the way your words, coming out of your mouth in your mother’s tongue,

are so, so, so many of them,

fiercely breaking the dam of silence, of not always finding the right word

or tone, or time.

You wonder, would the people you made an universe with

in your other life

recognise you here, on your familiar land?

Recognise your gait, and posture,

your confidence, your calm, your smile that is just

one bit different, since

after all

you’re smiling on your mother’s, father’s, all your ancestor’s tongue.

The way you take all of these and put them in the back pocket of your back pockets,

to take with you where the ground is not level,

the air is not easy on your lungs,

the words are not on every street for you to pick,

the stories smell different,

and the safety net,

in all tongues there were,

is gone.