Turning Back

I wished to be closer to my mother

to think of displacement in a different way.

To part the bright green new growth

of a plant she has asked me to gather.

We never imagined so many years apart.

I have no way to make amends.

Set adrift, I wanted to stay near the shore

of something familiar but instead I trace

the shape of tuqaayuk, sea lovage, wild

celery, with something other than my tongue.

I wish for my family to be its own refuge,

for the sorrow to become something islandic.

Someplace we can travel back to together

if we have to, if we make it through these days.