1
Welcome wicks sweat
of exodus, brow to towel.
We. With.
Host.
Boarders without borders.

2
Ambassador.
Light bows arch into ice boxes.
Customs
work.
Cruel odd demigods lurk.

3
School day drop-off,
their intercepted consonance.
Pick-up
rent
from kith and kin and kids.

4
Bare boiler room,
save corner altar -- cot, candles.
Christ's nail
marks
more sly sanctuaries.

5
Gated cities.
Free-slave headstones, hedged from annals.
Obscure
vice
of self - faux normalcy.

6
Doltish decor.
Inspectors dumped plans, architects
buy paint.
Fools
reboot Jericho's faults.

7
Good Emma's folk,
this Mother of Exiles bestows
free breath.
Wretch -
he who abjures such bonds.

8
Little Man, his
toddler nations united ‘neath
playtime.
Dreads,
spangled hijab, bindis.

9
Fading notebook,
Nana’s guiding deputation.
Paling
drafts,
impending songs, sermons.

10
Malawi, rapt.
Spirited, raucous otherness.
She bathed,
doused
in their accordant joy.

11
Note from pocket,
unveiled upon strange arrival.
Threshold
jolt.
Lessons from others’ lands.

12
Central. Detroit.
Conscience of city, country, globe.
Method
seeps
from hospitality.

13
“These families?”
“Come through us!” she dared the despot.
Draw up,
cast,
for brazen refusals.

14
Migrant village,
harvesters of bounty. Sojourn
over
rough
discourteous assent.

15
Diaspora,
now budding patrioteers, prepared
to live
our
confident proposals.

16
Overwintered,
we emerge for life, but withered.
Here, there.
Frail
from braving blight's brigade.

17
Eraser dust
falls as tempered lines turn clockwise.
He chalks
years
of welcome to being.

18
Eastern Market,
plastic drums, trucks, maiz morado.
Dancing,
balm,
flavor corporation.

19
Napoleon
calls back from an empty office.
Checks tales,
wild,
weary, rough detentions.