Papers

Elena's grandmother teaches her the word for morning
in a language nobody around them speaks.
The word tastes like bread the grandmother baked
in a kitchen with a window
that faced a mountain.

The mountain is gone now.
The kitchen. The country as it was.
But the word survives.
Elena carries it to school
in her mouth.

Down the block, Mrs. Nguyen
rolls out dough for the shop
that opens at four in the morning.
Her hands know the pressure without measuring,
taught by a woman
who fed a family through a war.

Across the street, Yusef
runs the register at the gas station.
The men come in for coffee before their shifts.
He knows their names. They know his.
This is what a country is,
or was supposed to be.

The men who come for Elena's father
wear vests that say Police
but are not police.
They wear masks. They do not knock.
They do not ask for the paper he already has.
They ask for his face.
His face answers.
The gun answers his face.

The country he crossed a desert for,
buried a brother for,
worked three jobs and slept four hours for,
has decided his face
is the paper
it will not accept.

Elena is nine.
She learns a second word this morning
in the language her grandmother taught her.
It is the word for orphan.
The grandmother turns her face
to the wall
because there is no window here
that faces anything worth naming.