Where I come from the earth was turned and tilled
by my grandfather for years while he grew

apple trees, blueberry bushes, big fat purple grapes
on vines over an arbor, but there were ugly things too –

the bees that attacked when I went for an apple, and
those fat green tomato slugs he’d burn off with a blow torch.

Even then, I thought that was crazy, and I was right. Some
things were not normal, like living with them, and mom, and nana,

four generations under one roof, which gram treated like
a miracle from her Catholic god that was always so

unforgiving, like the teachers who ruled our lives
when we were young and still growing, still learning,

but certainly not understanding that this is the best time
we’ll ever have in our lives. Childhood in a good home,

a family that loves and cares for you, dinner on the table,
allowed out until dark arrives, a blanket over this

little town where dreams are born and only die
if they stay.

From a prompt by Audrey Giben: Read “Daughter of Bays and Hills” by Penny Wei. Write a poem about home. Let it be complicated.