Belonging—Inspired by Victoria Chang’s “Obit”

Belonging—died on a long
street of invisible houses. Next
to mother’s incandescent smile.
On the thick stone floor where I
counted my allowance days
before. Now rubble. All rubble.
My invisible home in my
invisible country. Where the tea-
stained tablecloth, once white,
fluttered near a cornucopia of
manakish and watering mouths.
That one-bedroom palace slanted
to one side like a wise
grandmother. When belonging
died it bled the colors of the
jasmine blooms in the yard,
white and yellow pastels seeping
into pavement. A fractured bone
escaping its skin. It died quietly
to the rustling of tired feet
obedient to the slightest urge to
move onward. My father told me
we are refugees now. Spare
change forgotten in pockets,
spinning, rattling, drowning.

Ania González Pohlenz is an immigrant from Monterrey, Mexico living in Los Angeles, CA. Her poems carry a strong sense of nostalgia and honor the experience of suffering, motherland, and human connection. Pohlenz is an English student at the University of Missouri.