Today was the first day—after some years—
I started to wonder if it’s partly
the old cataclysms
I don’t like about this place. That it could be
the country my family came from, that it

could have turned so cruel and pushed them out
and now be transformed into something other. I’d
loved this country’s knowledge
that learning from horror is endless,

but I didn’t know the learning
could so easily lead us back. Suddenly we must stay silent
about new catastrophes they say sing
the wrong song about the past. Impossible
to sit still on mornings
like this, impossible to hold

a baby, impossible (not)
to leave the house.