Citizenship
by Kazim Ali
If it isn’t where you enter but where you exit
Who doesn’t try to grab and devour what one loves
That last piece of the jigsaw puzzle fitting in
A ghost is not one who cannot let go but one who we cannot let go of
Streets wet with asters and deletion
June dissuaded by grey
My citizenship card found
Now I am neither one thing nor another
KAZIM ALI’s most recent book is Sukun: New and Selected Poems. He founded Nightboat Books and is currently a professor of Comparative Literature and Literary Arts at the University of California, San Diego.