RETURN FLIGHTS
The seventeen year old on the plane
from Sal to New York knows
Cape Verde is not a place you leave.
It’s the shuttling across the Atlantic
with his carryon filled with letters
written and saved long ago
photographs his family forgot
had been taken: His mother,
standing by a cove, leaning
against jagged rock in a bikini
the same color as her warm brown
skin. A black and white photo
of his father that could have been
the boy himself except for the yellowing
crease at the corner. Video footage:
fast music, quick hips. That’s my uncle’s
house. The walls brown in the
camcorder’s dim light. That’s my cousin.
That’s my cousin too. He wears
the necklace his girl gave him
even though it pinches his neck.
One tiny bead has an “F”
for “Fatina.” That’s her name,
Fatina. I’m coming back next summer.
copyright 2004 Jarita Davis