I often dreamt of going back there

while I still lived there, to that two-bedroom

apartment in a complex full

of identical apartments, once I had struck

it rich. I’d tell the nice white couple

who lived there in the future how I had to share

the larger bedroom with my parents

so my grandmother could earn her green card

in the other. I’d show them where I lost

my first tooth, where I pinned my world

map on the wall, where I’d hide

dollar bills so my mother could find them

later and exclaim with joy. I’d show them

the exact stair (three down out of fifteen)

where my mother learned they’d be raising rent

again. This was where I’d done so much growing,

evidenced by the pencil marks on the living room wall,

ticking the years by my height. I remember

the night we left. The last thing we hauled

out was my piano. My father and uncle slowly

stepping down each stair, the weight of my world

on their backs. The left pedal caught on the concrete

and we feared the whole thing would crash.

The piano was expensive; the lessons even more so.

It was never moved again—not to tune

and not to play. The music of it aged out of me.

That summer I got my first job, the only one

that would take me at 14. I learned that free

laundry was in exchange for a water bill, that ownership

meant borrowing. I thought you wanted the house,

my mother said to me recently. We bought it

for you, my father reminded. How to tell them

that, despite it all, I would always be a little behind—

that the world might not even last long enough

for their sacrifices to be worth it, generations down

the assembly line. That capitalism has already ruined

it for all of us, that I may never be able to afford

their elder care or my own children. They should sell

the house. Take the money. And run.