Jaya Rangan
Home of an Illegal Immigrant
At times I smell a musty, congealed body
in a cramped underbelly of a plane
where the big wheels are folding inward
vacuuming all the space
pushing stale and rank me into shrunken nothingness.
Sometimes, I smell an overcrowded ferry
drowning hopes
defeating the anemic frail bodies.
Is that me washed ashore?
Is it another hopeful immigrant?
Surely, this is a tangled route to a so-called home.
Sometimes, I smell an agonizing fear
of walking, hiding and darkness
where night vision glasses spot me and
my trembling self is shoved
into a prison’s residential living.
Which of these do I call home—
The landing gears of a plane
the freezing cold shipping containers
or the dream I bought with scraped money?
To many, home is an address.
A co-immigrant claims:
“That address could be an abandoned stairway
or a bullet-holed edifice of mocking security.
Why, it could be a high limb of a tree.”
These dwelling routes are beyond my daring;
totally foolhardy.
For me, home is sleep, an uninterrupted, safe snooze—
no one questioning the legality of the gumming eyelids.
Jaya Rangan‘s stories have appeared in Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal, The Bookends Review, and The Corner Club Press. She loves reading, writing, and travel.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.