The Great Migration

The Great Migration

Shit gets bad when the geese get startin’—

their big V’s soaring across the sky, calling out,

letting everyone know they’re on the move.

How lucky are they, to migrate so fearlessly,

honking and hollering to let everyone know

The boys are back in town.

 

There is a bite in the air in October.

My father doesn’t smile as much as he did last month.

The geese call out in their formation.

A drag from his cigarette—he misses his brother,

shot down from the sky on his migration.

 

Shit gets bad when the geese get startin’.

This weather does nobody good.

My newcomers ask me if snow is actually real.

They’ve only ever seen it on TV.

I nod. They light up.

I hope they’ll be able to see it this year.

Maybe they will, if they’re quiet.

 

My window is cracked open and the geese are startin’.

I step outside to watch them.

How magnificent, to be so unafraid in the way you move,

in the way you travel, in the way you fly.

Nobody can get you from all the way up there.

The sky is their limit—they cannot be stopped,

cannot be held, cannot be questioned.

They cannot fathom a border.

 

The freedom they have, I wish it on my parents, Mohamed and Lisa,

who came to this country the twelfth of September,

two thousand and one.

I wish it on the nerve of my grandmother, seasick on the boat,

rocking back and forth across the Atlantic,

thinking of what they will make her change her name to—

something ugly like Phillis or Fannie.

The freedom they have, I wish it on my children.

My children, the cold breeze hunts them down. 

Their first fall in Chicago,

There are helicopters overhead,

disturbing migrations, 

As above, so below. 

The geese continue their honking.

I close my eyes.

I think of all the people who have successfully made it to this stolen land,

or who have died trying.

 

My eyes open up to the geese right above me, 

I wish them good luck on their travels, 

But they won’t need it. I smile—

Something hits my forehead, runs down my nose.

Tickles my lips, stinks up the air,

I swear to the formation above my head:

shit always gets bad when the geese get startin’.