arrived on the shores of this country at the age of 17
with facial hair as thick as borders
and forehead lines that ran deeper than the oceans he had crossed
disguising his youth
inaugurating him into manhood
when the soviets invaded my father’s childhood
when the americas packaged and sold illusions of freedom
when motherlands began to cry out in protest
over all that was being done to them
our cabbie father drove home strangers
that were too drunk to put sentences together
but sober enough to laugh at his broken english
and when he silently mourned
for his murdered country
his humiliated ego
he would recline into nostalgia
my father
has spent 30 years
navigating foreign
losing himself along the way
