OK.
I think the next one.
So this one-- as you know, my family is Jamaican.
And the thing about being an immigrant in this country
is this country isn't sure how they feel about you being here.
And it seems consistently so.
So I think that presents-- it's interesting I think being--
interesting is a kind word-- but interesting
being an immigrant in this country
and having chosen to come here and the relationship you have
to it and then also being a child of immigrants,
having not chosen that and the relationship
that you have to it.
It's a kind of a tenuous one.
So this poem is sort of my considering that.
I'm thinking about that relationship.
And I consider it the sort of my complicated love
letter to America.
"The Free World."
I bind my old grievances to a helium balloon.
A long memory, I have been warned, is a curse.
Everywhere I go someone has something
they must say about you.
Nobody knows who we are.
Wouldn't you say nobody agonizes like we do?
Elsewhere is a promise and a threat.
I have been prescribed compassion of the wrong sort,
and so I am alone.
I am invisible within you.
Seeking companionship, I spend my afternoons
before the windows of pet shops and strangers trying to decide.
After all, I was told I could have everything.
I thought this was meant to be, a romance.
I was delivered here in order to love you.
I was delivered here and ordered to love you.
If we could be friends, I wore this new dress for you.