as if you’re only the end of a sentence, no beginning, written and memorized.

When she learned the truth about her birth, she traveled to lands acquired by war, renamed, the bloody soil turned over and reseeded with foreign growth. She understood that beneath her footsteps, the bothered spirits still lingered, unable to rest under a new identity.

where are my roots 

if not here? i wander like the wind, 
each breath untethered. 

shadows of violent centuries, 
sad, unyielding storytellers, 
pity me but refuse to hold my hand. 

—Short-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Cheribun Challenge #2

Maria M. Palumbo

is a poet, writer, and educator based near Annapolis, Maryland. Her love of literature began with a childhood fascination with fairy tales and poetry and quickly grew into a love of all expressive language, with its infinite possibilities of beauty and refuge. Her work has been published in Broad River Review.