after Sharon Olds 

i see them standing at the bus stop, 
young, the smell of back home still  
lingering on their months old luggage. 
english a coat of paint slowly drying  
on the walls of their communication. 
they are waiting for another journey 
to start: a trip to a Brooklyn high school 
i will learn of from their future stories. 
my mother will say my father was persistent.  
my father will say he wanted marriage  
the first time he saw her. but i can’t tell 
for sure, yet the way they sit close, 
my mother’s sturdy expression breaking 
into a slight smile as my father jokes 
about New York & their new classes & ESL 
& i think the one thing they love more  
than each other is the American dream 
& Jacmel. i want to tell my mother to leave 
or my father to break up with her.  
i want to tell them not to elope, 
that they’ll learn to hold onto a grudge  
longer than a marriage, that violence will be 
the twin of every child they bring into 
this world, that it’s not worth it 
the series of regrets, but i stay silent. 
i want to watch myself cry for the first time, 
remember the sound of my own ache  
before i was taught to steel myself  
against harm. i’d rather be a wounded paradox 
than an apparition, flesh out of touch.