The Reconstructed

Template Adapted by Levi Romero 

Inspired by “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon

I am from expensive pens on borrowed time

From cat graphic tees and clown figurines 

I am from the farmacy

a honey hive of hospitality

I am from the barely living banzai tree

The Palmettos a little more alive 

whose long gone limbs I remember

As if they were my own.

I’m from Christmas Eve and Italian Pride

From Janice and Anthony and the 2 Catholic Mary’s

I’m from dunking bread in red sauce and fighting

And from telling the same stories. 

I’m from Jesus’s heart and the never satsified

And somewhere over the rainbow 

I’m from sotftball games

I’m from Trenton, New Jersey and Italy, Pietregala

chicken parmagiana and ego waffles 

From my grandmothers resolve to live like she’d never die

her calm

her seated smile, family costumes, and inquisitive expressions

on the shelf, in boxes in the garage, in the pages of my journal

from homes that hardly felt like homes but yearned for the ones who lived in them

I am still from a place I’ve never been.