Immigration
So what if I don’t love you.
My problems don’t even happen to me
But to three girls grandstanding by the Potomac.
Respectively: your mother, her mother and her mother.
Three bitches in front of a trashcan.
Desirous of psychotherapy and a split lip courtesy of me.
Because I didn’t ask to be born here.
Didn’t ask to learn the language.
And don’t know how to save you.
Am I frightening you?
I’m frightening you.
Good and good and good and good.
From Delivered (Persea Books, 2009) by Sarah Gambito. Copyright © 2009 by Sarah Gambito. Used with the permission of the publisher.
Sarah Gambito
Sarah Gambito holds degrees from the University of Virginia and Brown University. She is the author of three collections, most recently Loves You (Persea Books, 2019). A cofounder of Kundiman, Gambito is the Director of Creative Writing at Fordham University. She lives in New York City.