Its night. I’m not from here. Inside
I’ll press my fingers against the screen,
recite my monosyllabic fealties
while their dog sniffs up and down my leg.
I won’t be who they’re looking for.
Once, my grandparents were. Tags tied
to their coats, they shuffled down chain-link corridors
and slept in livestock stalls.
The Border
Michael Prior
Michael Prior's poems have appeared in the New Republic, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Narrative, the Academy of American Poet's Poem-a-Day series, and the Asian American Writers' Workshop's The Margins. He is the author of Burning Province (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House 2020) and Model Disciple (Véhicule Press 2016).