Mother, I won't go to America
I don't want to work the desk job in the high-rise
at the edge of the city, waking the nights nesting code.
Mother, I can't buy you the dream home.
This is how I am. This is who I've become.
I weave a nest for the birds of dreams
to roost in my soul. I'm a poet. I'm peregrine.
When I come home, can I sit by your side
and not talk? Not talk of marriage and children
and property and bank balance?
I folded my kites up and my boomerangs
and studied the nights. The glass filings
on the manja cut sores in my heart but I succeeded,
through university and adversity.
But this is who I am: a poet.
I weave a fabric and print tales of shadow and light.
Here, they come to roost, the birds peregrine.
I don't come home to eat what you cook.
I don't come home to hear about struggles and
disappointments. Yes I have failed in some sense.
But there is so much to say that is better said unsaid.
But this is who I am: a poet.  I'm peregrine.
Can I just come home and sit by your side at sunset?