they keep asking where i’m from

pucker forms inside my mouth

a wrinkling, coastline of a country.

never been a flag for me to wear

caped over my shoulders to promise me light

even at cavernous borders

in another life i might have been a light

house, welcoming newcomers at the border

with my porch glow mouth,

climbed narrow staircases where

the bloat of my countries

were bullet wounds i rose from

instead i beg for forgiveness at borders

grip my tongue with teeth in mouth

renounce my countries

like they are light

as helium, careening from

such recklessness, a veil i wear

as i wait for man with gun to tell me where

to stand, when to press my thumb against green light

where to molt my countries

as if i outgrew them, as if this comes from

a tightness that constricts me, holds my mouth

hostage, my skeleton for room & board

at eight i could tell from

the pledge of allegiance pierced in my mouth

an old navy american flag shirt worn

every fourth of july, that i wanted this country

to pour concrete in all the slight

cracks of my body’s borders

at eighteen the border

a familiar mouth

would swallow me whole from

an immigration counter, where

a cyclical pilgrimage of blight

denies me country,

whose name i held in my mouth

whose fists stopped me at every border

whose pledges never brought me light