I’m imagining all the birds gathering the crumbs of memories scattered on our doorsteps.

They swallow them and hanin, longing, takes on a name, a scent.

I’m imagining all the pebbles on the dirt road counting the steps of those who have departed,

making a tally of our feet as they kick the air.

I’m imagining all the streetlamps bowing as they stand there, guarding absence—guarding

our absence.

Every speck of dust hovering over the forgotten clotheslines, every hope we are condemned

to heap up over and over again, to construct until it becomes a house with a blue door. When

my grandmother said those who knock on the door receive an answer, she wasn’t lying.

When I knocked on it, the voice whispered to me, grabbing my hand, pointing towards the

south. I saw the expanse before me as a sea; I wove language into a shore that stretched out in

the direction of the wind; and all of hope became my voice.

2 a.m.