Tuesday Poem: Passport

Not all the poems I wrote for my latest collection New Sea Land made the cut - some because they were't quite good enough, some because they didn't fit the theme. "Passport" is one of the latter (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!), but relevant nevertheless.

Passport

Need to travel, passport —

(expired, but still potent)

not where I was sure it was,

a rectangular light-blue absence.

Frantic search, piles

of ancient documents disturbed,

dead boxes exhumed

dust sneezing the room

house turned upside down

passport stubbornly unfound

any record of citizenship

vanished, my birth certificate —

from another country’s system,

in another country’s name —

trapped in a cul-de-sac,

and the clock ticking.

Two tentative phone calls

solitary queuing downtown,

new forms, new photos

and it’s sorted in time

the new dark-blue rectangle

clutched to my heart,

a stateless life in departure lounges

now the least of my fears

but I wonder:

what if I couldn’t

sort it with a phone call

what if

I was running from, not running to

what if

the guns were coming, and the boats were leaving

what if

I had no choice

what

would I do

what

wouldn’t I do
to get away?