BORDERS

Crossing Checkpoint Charlie with my in-laws, 1982

Westfolk immune

pass through like seraphs,

accordion wire unseen.

They do not smell Drancy’s

latrines, oiled gunmetal

fear on the Umplatz.

Invisible to them

dark groups in woods

the sucking mud

of winter Polish forests

the drowned, grasping for visas

who rose from green cobbles

like nausea, when Vopos

stamping our passports

sniggered Just one real

American

and no voice

spoke from the whirlwind

and the burning bush

stayed silent.

First published in Watered Colors (2014)