Contradictions

15.

You who think I find words for everything,
and you for whom I write this,
how can I show you what I'm barely
coming into possession of, invisible luggage
of more than fifty years, looking at first
glance like everyone else's, turning up
at the airport carousel
and the waiting for it, knowing what nobody
would steal must eventually come round -
feeling obsessed, peculiar, longing?


Adrienne Rich
Contradictions: Tracking Poems
Your Native Land, Your Life, 1986