Eastern European Dawn 
  
My father tells me over the phone 
he’d emigrate even now, in his old age. 
  
It’s good to have your daughter in America. 
I’m his insurance policy against history. 
  
He thinks about me late at night 
when he hears the news 

about tanks in the distance, 
a pack of dogs barking on the border. 
  
The night bleeds its edge into dawn, 
a dawn he recognizes, 

one he has seen before:
its color, carnivorous rose.


First published in The Healing Muse, 2015

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Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet with work published in Field, New Letters, Gravel, Prairie Schooner, The Malahat Review, Asymptote, RHINO, and elsewhere. She has published five poetry collections, most recently Twoxism, a poetry-photography collaboration with Maria Haro (8th House Publishing, 2018). Serea is a founding editor of National Translation Month and a co-host of The Williams Poetry Readings series in Rutherford, NJ. 

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