We carry everything in a single suitcase:
two pairs of underwear,
a porcelain cup
our mother had cherished,
and photographs — unframed, just paper
smelling of dampness.

The house was left open,
the key still in the lock,
the tablecloth on the table,
the uneaten soup cooling in its pot.

Tomorrow the birds will enter through the window,
while we — we will be far away,
in foreign rooms that smell
of exile and asylum.

On the truck the children slept
as if it were not the end of the world,
and an old man held in his hand
the padlock from the stable —
as though one day he would return
and once again lock the oxen into the dark.

At the border they asked our names.
We remained silent,
because a name without a house,
without a graveyard, without a yard —
is not a name,
but a wound.

And so, we became
a column of dust,
a people in motion,
without an address and without a song,
carrying only a suitcase
that looks less like a home
and more like a grave.