Sitting in the Waiting Room of Adult and Family Services at SE 122nd in Portland, Oregon, with My Sister and My Mother Two Hours Before I Return to School (April 1995)

Portland and Pullman. Moving. Traveling. Away from both. Toward some figuration of Annandale, perhaps, like a highly fictive moment I call home.

The memories that solidify that morning: the nervous anxiety generated by impatience for the two boys running so confidently among the waiting chairs, yelling and whooping their lack of concern; two girl-women in the corner braiding bright blocks of yarn into each other’s hair; a man behind the nearest window speaking in Hindi or Farzi to a very tired woman and her sweating male companion; and my sister’s belly eight months big. Her hands rubbing her aching hips. Her breasts swollen like our mother’s for most of my childhood.