Where I’m From

I’m not from Castro Valley, 

California, the first place I lived

I only remember the smell of the church

nursery, orange juice and graham crackers.

I’m not from Portland,

Oregon where I accepted Jesus and killed 

motorcyclists on the street in front of our small 

house with the purple door. 

I killed them with a gun fashioned from a hole punch.

They alarmed my mother. She said

I should not shoot people with hole punches.

I’m not from San Jose,

Costa Rica where I built plastic car 

kits that came in cereal boxes.

My legs were run over by a car there,

a Volkswagen, but I was fine. I learned to skip

frisbees on the street with my father-

branded frisbees: Fanta, Sprite.

I’m not from Quito,

Ecuador where my life started, as far

as I am concerned. I turned six in the improbably

named Jipi Japa neighborhood 

across the street from the park and Teresa’s Store.

I turned ten at Kilometro Ocho, where I also turned

eighteen, having held a girl’s hand once, but

not having kissed one until fifteen days later.

I’m not from Pasadena,

California where the summer heat and haze

of the place hid the mountains.

I’m not from Castro Valley,

California where I slept nights while I didn’t

have any regrettable college exploits at all in Hayward

or San Leandro, Fremont or Berkeley.

I’m not from Quito,

Ecuador where I dumped a girl

rudely for another one, not a mistake as much as

a cruelty that, finally, I regret.

I’m not from Modesto,

California where I married Annie and filled a chair

at a church office for fifteen years. Emma

was born there and Lucy. Benjamin we adopted

because we could and we wanted him.

I’m not from Salida,

California where we slept during sixteen

months of support-raising before becoming missionaries to

I’m not from Pretoria,

South Africa. It’s as much home as anywhere. I love

birds here and beer and meat. I can hear my neighbor’s conversation

in Southern Sotho tonight he’s having a party and the men are drinking

beers in the back yard and comparing girlfriends. I don’t really know.

I don’t speak Sotho. I’m not from here.

Read in the TCK breakout session, 9 May, 2017.