my father

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