Monuments: My Mother’s Return

It is my mother’s first visit 

To the homeland from 

The diaspora. 

She wears 

A lighter complexion than those she calls brother and sister, 

She wears the mark of 

slave-master-rapists-abusers 

who came before. 

She clutches a journal 

in her hands heavy with dreams of belonging, and 

Spiritual return. 

She wears her hair relaxed at this point, 

her kinks undone by 

Americana. 

These edifices are not her own

Archives of belonging but

They are in the continent she wants to imagine

As home.

She lifts her arms up

A brief moment, memorialized

In front of stone.

She extends herself among

These towering God figures 

Of the past. 

She doesn’t remember these photos, 

When they were taken 

She was happy? 

So many miles, so many years

Away from

Memory becomes impossible, 

And fragmented. 

And fabricated.

And fantasy.