The flickering fluorescent light above your head at halmeoni’s corner shop
probably would’ve driven me up the wall, too.
Others played
soccer or baseball or cello and had time to paint.
You scanned and shelved and counted,
translated and defended and dodged
beer bottles hurled at your face.

Your adolescence picked up by the American Dream and crunched despite
never being accepted in America, never just a face in the crowd
Always a peony among roses.
The American Dream dangled 
before you 

You were told no distractions. Chase
your studies not women.
No art. It’s useless anyway.

So you left the house for college
But got a call two years later
Your father is ill
He fell off a roof
Probably too drunk
So you have to come back to support your mother and sister
No longer able to afford tuition anyway
You worked and worked and worked and worked
The bills still piled up 
You took a second job
You tightroped on the poverty line

All to give me, my brothers, my sisters books
Pencils
To fill in the rungs of the ladder that were missing for you. 
You hold back tears as we climb up,
Waving to us from the bleak, patchy ground

Which is why I, your poet child, hope to enrich your world through my art
And cultivate a Garden for us to come home to.