In my family, decisions are made by the lama
who dreams into fate. The gardener who is rotten
whey is not as lucrative as the gardener whose garden 
grows tomatoes. After all, we’re living through
a conjecture. Wiser to say sorry within the alternatives
of a moment and read the display of toes as assent.
Men are men because we know. The men in my family 
hope to return to a country they left in their youth.
They say home and point away from the cement rooms 
they have built. At home they say the grass was tall,
the milk was sweet. At home, there was no need for sugar.





The youngest in the family died during the year of his 
obstacle. A pilgrimage to four holy sites and seven offerings to 
lamas proved otiose but Doma, the family dog, survived a fall 
from a steeple. Once a year, the girls on our street worship 
their brothers with offerings of flowers and vermillion 
powder, remembering that brothers will one day take wives. 
We wish to know the ordeals of all beings we pray for. 
Amphibians. Crocodiles. What of oranges hanging like bats, 
their discomfort in being ripe? What perpendicular roots 
we’ve formed, in this, our neighbor’s motherland? The 
departed will return but that is not necessarily good.
To be born a human is a commendable feat, the elders say, 
marking our foreheads with black soot to keep evil eyes away.