On August 10th 2017, Nonna, my grandmother, Brenda Azario, who was suffering from terminal cancer, recorded a video titled “Goodbye.” In it, she speaks to her grandchildren and children. Each family member was delivered the video via a usb stick in a pink satin pouch. In her address, the word LOVE is mentioned only once towards the end.The words success, perseverance, and achievement are repeated and stressed throughout the recording. She tells us (me), “do not be afraid of the difficulties of life, as they provide so many learning opportunities”.

“Do not be afraid” she says

as she is dying.

Home body
I am inside both

My body houses me

my home times two

I sit by the fire coddled by my Mum.

Flaming bouts of periodic anger and hurt cannot compare

to the roaring love I feel for my first home.

A frightful storm formed when we moved

Half a world between us

I lived with another mother,

my Father’s now

Nonna

This displacement shook the foundations that I had

meticulously built with balletic precision.

I escaped my body and home high up a Primrose Hill.

Rejecting due maintenance the dust piled up

allergic to my own reflection.

The bills bounced back unfed

I couldn’t bother to heat up last week’s pathetic excuse of a meal.

The only space I learned

to be safe

was within the walls of my bedroom

My body laid scared.

I began to edit

visually organise the thoughts that could not be deciphered.

Some items at home

remain of that time.

Objectified memories personified into children of my own,

They stand alone now

but I housed them first nonetheless.

It takes a long time to build a home

perhaps it is only completed in death.

It begins with just the building blocks of past lives

a bucket to vomit in when you get homesick.

Passing on others- grandkids

Child you will find in your home the complexities of a simple life

some tools to better their own.

My home insulation is thicker now

Because of the time when I lived with my Nonna

I don’t own a fire pit

Or a freezer

I do not freeze even in the coldest of winters.

I dance

I dance to remind myself that speaking need not be sonic.

My body

a citizen of the world

as were those of the women who birthed me.

Home need not have borders

There are ceiling cracks that sometimes leak,

but teardrops are necessary

the antidote to boredom.

verityazario@gmail.com