Visa Walls
A repetitive stamp on a passport
can expedite our joyous first meeting.
Love spurs a nervous heart
towards a new, unknown life.
Papers collected and shuffled,
we pray for official acceptance.
The gatekeepers eyes penetrate
with suspicious glares of denial.
The bureaucracy divides the masses.
A mother, a brother, a lover
denied access to greater connections.
Mercy is not spoken by the immigration clerk.
Phone calls, email, and goods travel across borders.
People are not granted such freedom.
What is the price to enter the fortress?
Only those with fat bank accounts enter this land.
I would risk prison to touch your warm hands,
clasp your sweet face between my palms,
inhale the tender aroma of your fine silk hair,
graze the soft delicacies of your smooth skin.
Where must we flee to share a moment together?
Free from the interrogations of the government forms.
Is there a place on this globe for lovers?
Where fences give way to fertile orchards.
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