My Immigrant Father is Tired

by Feven Worede

This country wears him as thin as a blade of grass

devoid of the sun that slithers behind clouds the color of Age,

the shade of smoke, the hushed hue of sickness.

The space of skin beneath his eyes looks black and bruised,

sunken and swollen,

as hollow as holes of violence that mark the face of the moon.

I am tethered to this land like a tree,

my roots sink into this soil like teeth—

never moving, never to be moved.

My father fled his homeland on his feet,

his bones breaking, his back aching—

just for me.

He never complains; I call it love.