My People

My people

married their first cousins

and passed on crooked backs

and congenital deafness -

my people scraped desert island hills

into terraces

and pleaded with the earth -

my people gathered the rain

in cisterns hidden beneath their huts.

There was never enough,

and poverty only begets beauty

and generosity

in the movies.

Its only true children are fear

and jealousy.

And that is why my people

set sail

and did not

return.