The silence of dawn, by myself, without the invisible hourglass counting down my time to myself before he wakes;

The little town of Alfama stirring awake, the sun sleepily trying to break through the gloom and the gray;

Conversations with strangers, compacted into easily digestible sound bytes for small talk, but if you listen closely, you’ll hear: fellow immigrants’ stories of struggle, pain, isolation in the pandemic—a complicated relationship with ‘home’;

The persistence of his joy;

Growth made manifest into teeth, strings of sounds, increasingly dexterous fingers;

Many, many strangers on the streets and the airport and the plane breaking their stupor when he smiles his big, goofy smile, with all of his two (and a quarter) little teeth;

The relief of landing here, with family, at ‘home’, at last