“Where on earth are you from?!” I rather rudely asked
The first time that we met. “I’m the people they found
When they came looking for you,” she very tartly said.
Even then we knew, I think, that since the world was round
There’d never be a time when we wouldn’t be
In one another’s head.
When explorers went exploring, looking for worlds to own
Indian Americans and American Indians didn’t yet abound.
They gave their ships women’s names, these hungry men
Whose lust for gold would run those ships aground. But when
Explorers would come as women, foreign to every shore
Lusting after knowledge, home cooked food, and more;
Sisterhood in corridors, soups that made you thin,
Thermal socks and borrowed fathers, that brought
You home again; this love that made us fighters,
Saw us through misery and all-nighters, once again
Makes voyagers of our souls. And every now and then
We sail through oceans fraught, dropping anchor when
We meet, more rarely than we ought.