My great-grandparents belong to wind,
to cousins fighting over a house that’s only ink.

One great uncle still remembers, faintly,
the beautiful dining room in Antwerp, the Persian carpet

beneath his feet and hands, mama crying on the train south,
the white bean soup peasants fed them beside the tracks in Toulouse,

the rolling ship pulling out of the dock in Lisbon,
the woman who led him to his bed in Jamaica.

The third cousins fight for possession
of music their ancestors sang, effortless

ghosts tapping the light. Belonging is glassine
slick beneath the pooling ink.

It’s the apartment in Antwerp with its dusty books,
the crinkling of onion skin, fingers tapping on diamonds,

creaking floorboards under the soft knees,
mama’s breath quickening

at rough knocking at the door.