ASYLUM
What if you could only take what fits in your pockets
and one backpack? What will you leave behind?
The framed family photos will remain on walls.
House and car repossessed by banks. Furniture,
flat screens, autographed baseballs, books,
and vinyl records painstakingly collected
over decades, never seen again. Say goodbye
to that room full of craft projects and material.
At least you won’t need to worry about unwashed
dishes or dust on the gilt frame holding Grandma’s
portrait. Sure, upload digital videos of treasures
and poems to the cloud, hope where you end up
has internet. But don’t feel bitter about your life
in America during those days we led the free world.
That way lies madness. Accept you weren’t
brave enough to stay and fight for rule of law.
Remember the fate of ancestors who stayed too long
in Russia, Germany, Armenia, Rwanda, Somalia.
Upload your savings to off-shore accounts
and Swiss banks. Only numbered accounts.
No place is perfect but you can find some where
you can be free. What good are things, anyway,
if you can’t take them with you? Sell what you can
for cash, put silver and gold coins in money belts,
fill backpack with meds, jewels, identity papers,
flash drives, change of underwear, one notebook.
Your most important assets stay with you –
brains, skills, experience. Keep low. Stay alive.
Peter's YouTube reading of "Asylum"
Peter confesses: "An immigration lawyer told me that they’re receiving a record number of calls from people who are thinking about leaving the US. I thought about how hard it must have been for my ancestors to leave their homes to come here. Are there any safe places?"
PETER M. GORDON is an award-winning poet with over 180 poems published in various magazines and websites, He's authored three collections, and his latest is Middle Age Spread, available on amazon.com. Peter founded Orlando Area Poets, and is involved in several other poetry groups. He teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.
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