elementary school geography

i stuck dozens of thumbtacks

red and blue and yellow

into a faded pastel map of the world

that my third grade teacher gave me

when i found a euro on the playground

and asked questions about the places

where they don’t look for lucky pennies

i tore holes in the countries i thought i might

want to call home someday, imagining

what it might feel like to turn foreign to familiar

friends have gps coordinates tattooed across their left ribs

or securely fastened to gold chains around their necks

so certain of where the grass is always

waiting for the weight of their feet

they are bound to fixed places i’ve never known

i am searching for cross streets

new england front porches with potted geraniums

on the steps and mom in the kitchen

making snickerdoodles and a pot of earl grey tea

searching for dutch canals to bike along with the wind

at my back and corner cafés in france

where we all know each other by name

and pause at the same time each day for a madeleine

searching for exhales that come easy and

sunshine that leaves good morning kisses

planted on my cheekbones

by now it takes all my fingers and toes to count

the number of places i’ve called home

and sometimes i wonder how many actually merit

that name and whether definitions are written

with the lavender smells of the laundry machine

and cursive roots of the tree we planted

in one front yard when i was two

or if they’re better off penned with winding cobblestones

and foreign alphabets, punctuated by

sharp inhales of awe at all the different colors

the sun can set with

maybe i’m not meant for permanent

declarations of belonging

or a map with only one thumbtack

and if i keep chasing sharp inhales

and easy exhales and sun-kissed freckled cheekbones

i will run out of pastel-colored boxes to poke holes in

let all the shapes blur together

i will stop trying to define home as a singular noun

and instead let its four walls hold all the places

i’ll ever feel free