Nocturnal Tripping
My itinerary is the eternity of exile.
Deferred is the trip back into domicile.
My marching orders lost at sea;
my papers shrouded in an immigrant's secrecy.
Lamar Avenue in Austin, Texas is wide, long and it flows.
Air-conditioned apartments allow for repose.
My transports and attachments to the past,
my dream-life, have an urgency that is never lost.
An exile's ultimate treat, tonight's dreamlike score:
a dinner with the Zaidis in their Islamabad home.
Copyright Credit: Raza Ali Hasan, "Nocturnal Tripping" from Sorrows of the Warrior Class. Copyright © 2015 by Raza Ali Hasan. Reprinted by permission of Sheep Meadow Press.
Source: Sorrows of the Warrior Class (The Sheep Meadow, 2015)