Instructions for Identifying "Illegal" Immigrants
       

1.            Consider moving through
                the preface to home:

                                the crowns
                                & field stones

                                littered.

ii.          Consider skin's nature
              departure's hue:

                                the immigrant will be
                                dried leaves amongst owl eggs

                                & cradles
                                of lacquered oak.

iii.        Recall you are homeland
              & formal choice

                                coiled in accent around
                                a room whose edges dream themselves
                                          into shapelessness.

iv.          Consider the white
              body as passport,

                        the flesh the barrier
                        of no specific light

          held where every edge is erosion,
                                endings open

                                into endless nudity.

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Copyright © 2018 J. Michael Martinez All rights reserved
from Museum of the Americas
Penguin Random House
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission