by Charif Shanahan

I have longed to say My people
Not because I was born

Of two peoples, of blue
Tiled walls and strip malls.

Not because I don’t know
Where I belong, or

With whom, or worse
“Who I am”

As onlookers have
In their pity proclaimed,

The lovers, too,
After they’ve exited

My body which they felt
Emboldened to name. I

Have wanted to say My people
And to be clear

To all people, to any you
Imagined by the mind

Of an embodied you
That was also first imagined.

I am interested in repair
Without shame. I am

Interested in restitution
With anger. I am

Interested in anger
As love, in having

Anyone who hears the phrase
See it vanish into the edge

Of what they know, to know
How far I mean it to reach—

My people
As redundancy, as symbol

Of the first truth,
Immutable, almost

Banal in its assertion:

If you are on this earth,
You are of this earth.