Out Of Exile

Touching down on the tarmac
she almost wants, still
to kneel, kiss the ground.

It’s a homecoming
although she hasn’t traveled far
she feels blessed to be back.

Her exile is self-imposed
of sorts. She made her bed.
And what a glorious bed it was,

for a while. And now, she lies
in it with her mixed-blood children,
her foreign husband. Sometimes

she dreams the life she might have had
if she’d never left home. Close
your eyes, squint and you might see -

it could have been easier. But then
friends tell her she’s living the good life.
All they see is the holidays they take;

forgetting how even silver tarnishes with use.
She wonders could she come back, out
of exile to this promised land of green

fields, grey stone houses, salt and vinegar
crisps, warm beer? But then
there are all the things she would miss:

bread, wine, cheese, all such clichés
but they have become her currency.
This is not the worst of it. She thinks

of how her children’s voices would sound
strange here. They would be the ones
marked out as different. No. There is

no easy way back from exile in the end.
Too long gone, the land she knew, the land
she might return to, is a foreign one now.