Poetry

Exiles

by A.D. Capili

You remind me the blind in the bedroom is broken: I need to call
            somebody
                        in Dutch, which already makes my thinking stutter;
the cat peed again outside the litter, you added,
            which brought to mind the vet we can’t afford.
Remember it’s Sunday. Call your son. Make the effort to talk —
                        but we forget — for death phoned another aunt of yours
                                    as you were gasping for more air in spring.

 Most of our days have become like this: we make lists
            of chores that now form the substance of our being.
We hear of things that happen in our motherlands,
            without us, and we can do nothing but eat our self-pity.

We’ve asked ourselves if we’re creatures that chase the fishing cord and bait
            but never see the hand that pulls and swings — are we to share the fate
                        of Moses, a stranger to both birthplace and promised land?

Yet there are also days when you return home feeling supernatural
            for having spoken a string of Dutch at the pharmacy. Then we’d sit
                        at home marvelling at the refuge we’ve scraped together:
                                    the tweedehands^[1] furniture and books, the snakeplants,
                                    the adopted pets
                                               — for now this is it. This is life. C’est à nous.

[1] secondhand

Appeared in Issue Fall '25