Theresa Senato Edwards & Lori Schreiner

as you wait for a new country, a new way to find

your way out of sadness? Young twins, somber eyed.

You fear the ship’s turn when you watch the fade

of bright land, the stretch of ocean below a metal

porthole you’ll never stop looking through,

looking for ground safe with futures.

Your hands, strong beneath chins, hold

you both through sadness, eyes somber,

hair like fire, the singe in two hearts

turned away by Cuba and the USA.

But nights are more than a dark porthole

you look through. Imagination lifts you into

worlds of playing in the grass, parents reminding

you to let go of sadness. Young twins, somber eyes

below scuffed foreheads. The artist’s painting holds

you amid the ship’s sway before disembarkment

from a porthole you’ll never stop looking through.

Memories somber but find their way out of sadness.