leaves after the first summer rain

In exile,
we eat forbidden fruits watching seagulls bathing in the sea,
we stretch our arms engulfing sky in our palms,
we grow out of our body
and proclaim freedom,
we walk through the fence, merging boundaries under our feet.
We walk to the land where mulberries bloom,
and guava leaves turn shy.
It rains. The sky becomes a newspaper.
I read the reports in reversible order,
so there are deaths at the bottom
and hope at the top,
we make paper boats
and get away with the news.

In exile,
we do not fear death
for we have forgotten life itself.
We move through windows of our hearts
making a home inside our lungs,
we breathe the different air.
You and me,
we and us
we are in exile,
in prisons of homesickness.
We are surviving a bitter experience
by making sweeter ones,
my tongue wraps a new letter,
a language we have known since ages
but never spoke.

In exile,
there are paper boats and planes,
there are mulberries and seagulls,
there are seven skies and seven lands,
we belong to neither of them
and yet we are free,
empty of burdens.

In exile,
we are free to move
out of this body
out of this unhappiness.
We believe we are free,
unless
we are reminded of home.

©Sameera Mansuri 2020.

The post first appeared on The Poetic Elixir.