Coming to America
September 1993.
The customs officer found my stash
of words and native metaphors
between a thick accent and dry Indian
foodstuff in an old Samsonite suitcase and
confiscated it; Wiped crystal clean,
I crossed the border and was no one,
a swarthy alien body in Boston dusk.
And yet we keep coming.
There's something to it, this hollowness -
as catatonics push with a goofy grin
through the swinging doors
of heaven.