Illegal Dreams
The border is fixed,
but wavers in his sleep.
Lives move beyond it
like storm clouds above continents.
He dreams sometimes of his dark hands
sinking into soil, into blood.
He dreams of having no hands.
He dreams despite the cold
of the desert nights.
He lives a whole life in his sleep.
He visits his family back home, those
who scrabble each day in the hard dirt.
He sees his brother and his sister
who would no longer know him.
He sees his father and his mother
in their unfulfilled deaths that made them free.
He feels the form and weight of his
wife beside him.
He kisses his children goodnight.
The border is distant. He is patient.
Toward dawn, he closes his eyes and crosses over.
Walter Worden