Six Poems

Prayer

Grant me a little child
I can hide
When the mullahs come home to pray,
When planes are birds of prey.

Someone
Smaller than my thumb
I can put in my pocket and run.


Refugee

Who can tell her identity?
The gold, the silk mattress, such stuff
Are noble and yet not enough:
Where is the blasted pea?


Immigrant

It hurts to walk on new legs:
The curse of consonants, the wobble of vowels.

And you for whom I gave up a kingdom
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