My heart is a shrivel of miagos bushes,
uprooted, shoved, chucked in new soil;
the leaves between my lips,
now, in an unhealthy shade of chartreuse.
Regardless, I have taught myself
to shear them into tiny leaf crumbs,
making trails —
marking the houses, the buildings,
the roads of this foreign city,
safekeeping directions
into a catalog of things that aren't home.
My feet are weary and somehow,
they manage to find their way
back in this cold, oppressive room.
And yet, how does one sleep under the glare of these walls?
How does one revive a dying garden
in a city that only knows
the language of tires as they kiss the pavements,
in a city that only knows
the walis tingting's weary sweeping
of these crumbs of miagos leaves —
the ones leading back home?
Yes,
I can teach my tongue and all its browning, dying leaves
to remember these new ways of growth,
these new words, new schedules,
new routes, new streets.
Alas, even the waters, even the sun
can't teach it to love the language it doesn't speak.
