Loving Salvation

I  could only ever love a man
Who can sit beside my mother 
And make her smile;

Not with the reluctant unease
She learnt in England,
From the men and women 
Who regarded her with quiet suspicion;

But the hearty open mouthed grin of her homeland
That always said:
“welcome, welcome,
I recognize in you something of myself,
Your language falls at home in my ears
And your face could have belonged to a child I never had,
Welcome, welcome,
This space was always reserved for you.”

I will love him like it a religious duty,
A cultural duty,
An ethnic duty.

I will love him like it is salvation,
Like it means keeping my people alive.

Farah Gabdon