son

Before North took a seasonal job / fishing for kings in Alaska / I’d never admitted to myself / that he was my only friend.

A Parent's Complicated Repatriation

Kwasi woke up somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. What time was it? He looked out the window for a sign of land but there was only blackness and wisps of gray. The boy in the aisle seat who had fallen asleep on his shoulder woke up and looked blankly at him. He looked like he could have been Kwasi’s son. They had the same high cheekbones, the same sleepy, almond-shaped eyes. The boy’s head weighed on him like a great stone, but in the moment, Kwasi felt thankful for it. “It’s okay,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

She says she lit a candle and placed it under my balls when I was born
because they were too big,