Oliver de la Paz’s poem is part of a series of “diaspora sonnets,” in which this one, along with others, create a whole, while each sonnet can still operate on its own. These sonnets don’t have all the elements of typical sonnets, such as rhyme and meter, but they have the usual 14 lines and a volta, or turn, in the penultimate stanza. The poem comes to life in the fourth stanza when it becomes surreal, when the “blight in the siding” speaks. The final volta tightly encapsulates the immigrant experience — that of new grammar and new lands that are both alluring and tenuous. Selected by Victoria Chang