STAMP COLLECTION
I dream to stamp collect.
I lick the back of every stamp
like Mama kissing her lucky
charm, while raising my arms
in surrender, like the back of
a stamp had a tongue from
a gun licking it. I taste salt
wetting behind the back of
my neck, on the day I face
God on the other side of
the looking glass. The Consular
Officer is a God who holds
my fate. They hold my future
like a stamp collector would
inspect my stamp for every
detail and blemish, like my
past body defumigated for
lice at the border in Juárez,
like my body in the future will
be stripped by the TSA Officer
upon arrival at JFK. I stand
before my random God to
read my verdict, hoping for
my stamp to grant me passage
like the coin on my mouth
while I pass through the Rio
Grande, hoping I have enough
stamps for a dress to my love
letter and future self. I hope.
My stamp is a little bottle of
hope floating on an unknown
Atlantic. My body is floating
behind the looking glass.
The Consular Officer looked
at my face like a city fading
back into ash. I look back
at the Arrival Gate behind
me, hoping my present body
won’t loosen into a column
of salt. My stamp collection
is found on every page of my
passport. My stamp is a child
floating along my Little Nile,
dreaming of stamping my feet
on Harvard ground, dreaming
of stamps on my diploma.
I look back to lick the back
of the stamp like a kiss from
a child to their mother. My
Mama also had dreams like me,
but instead of stamps, Mama
collected visa fees in her bottle.
—from Poets Respond
July 14, 2020
__________
Miguel Barretto Garcia: “As an international student, it was depressing to hear ICE’s announcement of clipping F-1 and M-1 student visas on international students if their universities would decide to hold only online classes. More than a million students, mostly from developing countries, worked hard in their home countries to have a shot of, not necessarily the American Dream, but a life where they can fully realize their potentials and possibilities. Among those possibilities is researching and developing vaccines to treat COVID-19.”
