The first map of my homeland I remember
was a blank bulletin board
on which they pinned down
loyalty, patriotic fervor, sacrifice,
and nothing else.
They said that would suffice.
My grandmother got a job as a secretary,
and all day she had to check for typos
in the word “comrade”;
my mom was in charge of wiping out
marmalade stains left on circulars
by sticky hands of teen boys and girls
in overalls,
and keeping flies from laying eggs
on the red letters
in ”our wonderful heroic people”.
Nobody was fooled, though.

But they nailed me up with my favorite
language: solum patriae sacrum est.
(I have to admit this is a dead language)
Anyway,
they didn’t cut off my legs
to fit into the communist bed,
yet the pins I removed from the map
came out blood-red,
and my loyalty, patriotic fervor, sacrifice
smelled sharply of squashed bed bugs;
so I knew I was given
a dilapidated map of my homeland.

©Elena Malec, California, June 3rd,1997