Night Nurse

You wake up alone in silent cold.

Images of a dream follow you to the bathroom sink.

Barefoot children in a sunlit meadow, their giggles

hurt as much as they delight.

You open the door to the dark sidewalk

and you see your young mother at the door 

thousands of lifetimes ago.

You are a little girl walking away 

with a bag of boiled yams for lunch.

You know all too well

mothers can spill their tears inside of them.

You forced yourself not to feel anything

when you pushed your children off your arms

at the departure gate.

They made you think there was nothing here.

They made you think it was fine to leave your children.

They said you were headed to the land of dreams

where every day they let you know 

you did not actually belong.

Our country has become a country that people left.

It hurt too much to miss those we left behind.

So, we bring that hurt with us to the future

to the people that will love us.

And even hate us.

And now you are at the arrival gate 

your own children watch you, a stranger now.

You grab at them, desperately missing them 

even as they are now in front of you.

But you are holding a newborn baby 

that is not yours,

in a land

that is not yours

in a dream

that is no longer yours.

Which is the dream?