My father told me he came from
an island. A boat in the middle
of the night took him and his
brothers to the city. They would grow
into men, become part of another
land to tell stories from, be named in—
no longer speaking ways of the water.
When my father became a settler
on the prairies, I came into this world.
Born in to but not of it, sea running
through my veins, from my father’s
sea—the one he would not recall,
told to forget. The ancestry test
showed up. Not that I needed to know
why I long for the boat that took a young boy
from his island, bare feet on the wet sand,
breathing salt in the air, waves lapping
distant shores—his shore, my shore.
Breanna Ho is a queer, mixed-Asian writer born and raised on the prairies with the sea running through her veins. She questions the concept of belonging while in a multiracial body, believing home to be simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. Her debut chapbook, Uncharted, is available through Anstruther Press.
