1. Grandma didn’t talk much about going

Home.

Her green card expired ten years ago and she’s still with us.

she said she was getting old and

Time forgot her

more than she forgot everything else.

That morning when her other children sent her a plane ticket to return to the Philippines

i saw her fold it up into tight pieces

a silent accordion

I was just a teenager and never left home

but I understood—

that feeling of being homesick for a place you have yet to see

a map you’ve folded and unfolded

she wanted me to drive her cross country across mainland

USA

i was too young to get a permit and her teary eyes couldn’t wait