Transition Zone
Nov 18 2009


We man these borders
with quiet persistence.
And the usual inquisition —
identity checks,
the purpose of your visit,
contraband fruit.

I brought fresh-cut flowers, instead;
conveniently dead
on arrival.
A peace offering
a non-aggression pact.
Emotional blackmail, perhaps.
A week later
they sat in cloudy water
in a badly chipped vase.

I think of sentries, and one-way glass,
of floodlights, and dead zones —
the no-man’s land
re-claimed by wilderness.
I think of lines in the sand
that soften with the tide,
that a steady breeze
smooths over.

In nature, there are no borderlines
just transition zones.
So am I a nation-state,
sovereign, inviolable?
Or am I mortal,
unavoidably packed into crowds
rubbing-up against the others?
And only sometimes
permitted to enter as one —
the molecules of smell
our vision, our skin,
vital fluids, intermixed.

I can feel the border thickening,
the shadow of the wall.
They say, from space
the planet is borderless,
too high
for the fine-grained view up close.
Where we are preoccupied
by the narcissism
of petty differences,
by the outs and the ins.
Where desire ends
and belonging begins,
and all of us
are immigrants.