[SIRENS BLARING]
Second petition A. Use this form if you are a citizen
or lawful permanent resident of the United States
who needs to establish your relationship
to an eligible relative who wishes to immigrate
to the United States, this is the perfect soundtrack
for this piece.
[LAUGHTER]
[SIRENS BLARING]
Right here, If you know this place is home about a beloved
whose skin you cannot live without,
whose fingers know why the jasmine bushes will not flourish
in your back yard in El Sobrante,
why your batter sours too late, why no amount of sugar will make
your tea sweet, why your front yard is scattered with pinions,
why all mail arrives like a bird strike to the fuselage,
the dot rolls dawdling and then shredding the turbines whose
letters you fold and unfold, fold and unfold,
fold and unfold until the creases give way and you put
the pieces back together on the dining table to make a map
for a country made of vein and sinew,
with hands pulled clean of wedding bands and raw rice.
A map for a country of two.
B. If you need extra space to complete
any section of this petition, use the space
provided in part 9.
Explain here again why they wish to leave behind the stone
well where they first kissed you,
where the large terrapin laps the shadow
and circles around the mossy rock overhanging
the clutch of her eggs to circumnavigate
a history of water trapped in land,
where ankles graze against cotton skirts stamped again
and again and again with laughing doves
carved into wooden blocks, where an open suitcase is
an undug grave, where a field of sugarcane
is a bruise spreading purple through land owned by the IMF,
a land free of flags, yet flagging, flagging, flagging,
flagging.