they call me odessa
name is destiny
my parents took yarn
threaded it through the ‘o’,
and the ‘a’
wove me into my history
shtetl turned big city slickers
odessa, russia turned odessa, ukraine
city of thieves
artists
and laughter
city of one
family of four
the stars too close for jumping
they call me odessa
scooting out puzzle pieces to make
room
sprawled between the now
and the collision of my great grandparents
both
from the old country
from the same city
the same quarter
odessa
they both escaped
to find me again
hiding in pickle barrels
ducked under hay trucks
rocky boat rides
Bottle necked odyssey
losing their first tongue
so readily, so vehemently
as if language could be scrubbed from
the skin like dirt from the road
four generations later
i am the old country
and i am the new country
mother tongue english
american blended freedom and possibility
they call me odessa
if they could see how i try to
reclaim their words
shver arbeter
shayna punim
oy vey
schvitzing and shpilkas
my yiddish as broken as their english
i try to un assimilate
a colonist of my own history
they call me odessa
the city they deserted
the home that betrayed them
city of poets
and mischief-makers
they call me odessa
but i don’t know them there
ghosts of a city i’ve never visited
but lived in, breathed in
because they never talked of odessa
never talked of their life there
pain
grief
a mask no artisan could replicate
that no one could penetrate
they call me odessa
don’t they know
that they can return now
that their odessa is waiting for them
that i am waiting for them
they call me odessa
name is destiny
but
name is also history