Welcome to the United States
       

Halfway to the home of the deceased,
I met a man with the softest voice in all Chicago

and offered him my passport (which,
to give some form to agony, I had almost bitten through).

He took it, and my mother's, apologised so sweetly
for the queue that I forgave him (but not America)

for being what he was. He had brown eyes,
and when he asked the purpose of our visit

and I explained, I thought they brimmed a bit,
like mine were brimming. I felt us

brim together, the soft-voiced man and I;
we were both of us bewildered, and so sorry

and we had to wonder, both of us, why someone
with a family would do a thing like that. His brother —

well he was missing for a month, a junkie —
they found him when they dragged the lake —

so I was sorry now for his loss too, we were both
so sorry, and brimming together, and his fingers

were so deft and elegant as they tapped the keys, and how
warm, how tender his feeling heart under his uniform

as shyly, willingly, I ceded him my fingertips,
and offered up my eyes, and believe me, in that moment,

he could have taken everything, that soft-voiced man,
just to give some form to agony, that we might brim together.

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Copyright © 2018 Joanne Limburg All rights reserved
from The Autistic Alice
Bloodaxe Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission