My mother is truth, the salt of life

my father is my singing voice

my brother is my burning self-respect

and my sister is tomorrow, when women will conquer the sun

my grandmother is hunger, eating, cooking, steaming, stirring flavours like a kaleidoscope of edible pieces of the world

my grandfather is dancing, I am at one with the rhythm, I am a body

we had many beautiful things

we had families as big as towns gathering in the market to throw sticks on new years day

until the war left only fragments

prayers written on torn pieces of flags

small charms of light,

like you and me,

ringing in the breeze in late May

they grow louder now,

in their shouts of drunken victory

like the parade approaching the city