Homage 

Through the broken words
of the language you never learned,
sleeping during English classes
after ten hours in the sweat shop;

through the broken dreams
of worlds closed to you,
of careers outside the kitchen
that your sisters would find.

Through free mornings
stolen by the factory
where you sat long hours
pushing stitches into seams

Through paychecks that turned
into food and rent
until it was time
for you to move

out of the sweatshop
into your own kitchen.
Through husband and sons
and girl grandchild

through the stockpiling
of dreams that decayed,
then died, these words
of mine emerge,

these words, like roses
climbing tenement walls,
these words, like songs
in a broken land.