Not vinegar. Not acid. Not
sugarcane pressed to mortar by
fist, but salt: salt, the home taste; salt,
the tide; salt, the blood. Not Holy

Ghost, but a saint of coral come
to life in the night crossing a
field of brambles and thorns, the camps
of pirates beat back to the bay

with hornets. Not Santo Nino.
And not a belt of storms, but this:
girls singing, an avocado
in each open palm, courting doves;

a moth drawn to the light of our
room you take to be your father.

About this poem
"What to say when someone asks where home is? Especially when 'home' for you can mean the Philippines-somewhere you haven't lived? When you were born a hemisphere away, but have inherited its faiths and myths, its capacity for awe? You give yourself permission to feel at home in your blood; you try to invent a new language for your answer."
-R.A. Villanueva

About R.A. Villanueva
R.A. Villanueva is the author of "Reliquaria" (University of Nebraska Press, 2014). A founding editor of Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art, he currently lives in London.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.

(c) 2014 R.A. Villanueva. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate