Green Card :: Evidence of Adequate Means of Financial Support

I needed money. There’s no poetic way to say this.

Even so, when you touched my face, brought my

cheeks to the nook of your neck, I burrowed into it—

a firefly seeking shelter from winter, far

underground. Then,

          you told me there’s no application form that can hold

          the entirety of a life, because our days constantly spill like wine.

          Imagine that, you said, apricot tones all over the page!

          you told me about your ferns, bejeweled with jade dew,

          their coiled fiddleheads full of unfulfilled,

          twirling futures, and I forgot about my fixation with earning

          people’s respect, among other things for which

          I’d been told it was proper to plead

          until granted.

          you told me, if immigrants could enrich a country,

          you didn’t want to know

          our melting point and whether we would shine

          brighter than gold.

          you told me how I could stop confusing belonging

          with belongings,  good with  goods, by sharing

          the way our hearts continue to beat

          resilient, even without an assurance of worth.

          you told me there can be solace in a dead end, in knowing the sea

          still collapses, still runs and soars carrying its broken

          shells, somewhere out there. And then,

                      you buried a kiss in the dark

                      earth of my hair. I believed it all.

                      What else could I do?