Circles

My mother tells me, as we’re laying in bed,
arms folded over our eyes to block the light
In her dim apartment because she never
opens the blinds because natural light
irritates her–she turns on lamps to
read and then shields her eyes to nap.
I don’t say this as an assault
against my mother–it is just
the sort of thing that I find most
charming about her. The little odd
circles she runs in
to make herself comfortable.

She tells me, “In 1971
your sister was a baby in my arms
and someone threw a brick
at the windshield of the car
and your father had to drive home
so slowly to keep the glass from shattering
and falling all over us and when we made it
he said, ‘We can’t live in a place like this’
so we came to America.” And I ask
Why have I never heard this?
Why has the story always been that he
was looking for opportunity and was tired
of living with bad memories or was restless?
Why wasn’t this our narrative? This makes
a different man altogether.
And she says, “What difference does it make?
We are here all the same.”