I left home without saying goodbye to anyone
I’m sorry
but this country is full of distances
my loss of words is just one of them
 
another is the highway they keep building
men in orange vests where do they go
when they close their eyes is it in
to someone’s arms
 
when I close my eyes
my eyes open in a cave of mourning
it’s easy to surround yourself
with what is not what is no longer
 
another distance is the road
between the eyes looking out
and the eyes looking in another is my mother
land my father
 
looking back across the ocean at himself
looking ahead across the ocean
some people look at us & say namaste
some people say terrorist
 
their point is that we belong to different
ways of saying hello
& we will go into separate goodbyes
another distance for strangers for estrangements
 
I try to remember the last thing my father said
to me resurrect the exact words
not just the meaning which could have been nothing
other than when are you coming home
 
he means to call back the son I wasn’t
my first distance & where are the men in orange
vests where is the road they were building