"To Love a Country" by Albertina Dos Santos (Grand Prize Winner)

Inspired by Richard Blanco 

To love a country as if you’ve lost one: 

2009, my mother left Angola 

with sand in her shoes, 

three children clinging like shadows to her skirt. The 

air behind her smelled of charcoal and mangoes, the 

air ahead bleach, bus fumes, and cold steel. Her 

partner’s voice followed like thunder: low, constant, 

crackling through every silence. 

She learned to pack dreams in plastic bags, to 

hush her hope beneath the hum of laundromats. 

The kids laughed in languages she barely knew, 

their joy a flicker in fluorescent kitchens. 

And though the walls still trembled at night, she 

watched the sunrise paint peace on their faces,

A color she hadn't seen since home. 

To love a country as if you’ve lost one 

is to carry hunger in your suitcase, 

to arrive with three children and no map, 

just bruises tucked beneath your blouse 

and coins that jingle like apologies. 

She left Angola with nothing but names: 

her children’s, her own, 

and the ones she swore 

she would never speak again. 

The plane smelled of metal and sweat, 

the air in America of bleach and distance. 

Her partner’s rage crossed, 

a shadow stitched to her steps. 

In tenement kitchens 

she boiled rice with borrowed salt, 

counted diapers like blessings, 

and prayed the landlord wouldn’t knock. 

Her children laughed 

in English she barely understood, 

their joy a flicker in the cold. 

She learned to love this new country, 

not for what it gave but for what it didn’t take:

a moment of quiet, 

a door that stayed closed, 

a morning without 

bruises.

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ALBERTINA DOS SANTOS is a fourteen-year old freshman, currently residing in Portland, Maine with her mom and two brothers. “To Love a Country” was inspired by bits and pieces of stories Albertina grew up hearing from her mother and siblings, ultimately being composed into her most memorable piece. In her free time, Albertina enjoys music analysis and true-crime documentaries. Her motto, “I write poetry as a way to breathe through life—each line a reminder that living is its one art,” is one she strives to live by each day.