Being all alone in an American home
An Indian Home in the Garden State
A home, made by and for a migrant family
Immigrants rather, and an Ideal Minority
Suddenly it dawns, in the space of the Home
All to yourself, folks having gone on errand
that you need listen to homegrown music.
The language learned in a jiffy and
perfected over a decade with relative
Precision in being able to write and speak
But accent – yes heavily Indian and South
Only recognized when in foreign lands
As this – and in public spaces – Church
The desire – subterranean to listen to the
‘foreign’ voice – even if both – and US over Indian
the slant of an access as the soothing one
Yet not yet there – neither in one’s
approximation nor of the other.
But passable and with a strain and growing
self-assertion and awareness of context
Taken for what it is – one’s mode of being –
communicating – and thereby slotted
in the hierarchy of human positioning.
All happening again – this time on
a global scale – the violence of force.