This poem was in the anthology self co-edited with Virginia Cerenio, Going Home to a Landscape (Calyx Books, 2003)
Tired
- by Maiana Minahal
Not demon nor god
just my tired father
who snaps off the useless bulb
burning above me.
Home from another night shift
at the machine shop,
grimy at midnight,
he finds me
half asleep,
face down in a book, tired
from trying to cram
too much in one night.
Too young, he thinks,
to work so hard.
But he wants me to work hard
and ace this American country,
His footsteps fade away
as I try to shake off sleep
to tell him,
no American dream drives me,
but fear,
fear of failing to conquer words
I don’t
understand.
Kanlaon 