The Beat-Up Yellow Colander MEGI MECOLLI
My story is told in a beat-up yellow colander Nestled in the cupboard by the stove And it reads like the notes on my Sister’s favorite bottle of wine: Long aged, begun before I was born, Strengthened by the herbal scents From foreign lands whose breezes Once graced her olive skin. A beat-up yellow colander is not The only key to my favorite foods, To the dreams I ate up with rancor Each day growing up, But to an apartment by the train tracks Half obscured by mighty oaks Made up of two bedrooms, a bath, And me. My mother tells my story, Weaving the tale and threading it together, A warm knitted sweater to wear On my first day of school. And like an epic of old, Alexander on the march, A family of three crossed a familiar sea To stand in a foreign threshold One bag between them, But they would not balk from the duty before them,
33 | Montage
