Why I Left When I Did

I’m like a bird. I migrated.

So here I am, in a Providence bar,

sipping a rum concoction

at a corner table.

I came to find work

the way robins and swallows

set off for the next food supply

once their current source gives out.

Except they return

to the place of their birth

to have babies.

I don’t see me doing that.

From now on,

migration will just be in my head—

a happy memory of childhood

seducing me back to the island,

the grimness of my prospects

jetting me northward.

I’m like a bird.

I run on instinct.

But I keep my wings clipped,

that’s all.