Go to a Baltimore MVA
and you will hear what’s important.
A young man with a mom
no dad today gets
a permit.
A Japanese guy trying to complete
some kind of law test
a thin woman with tattoos
trying not to freak after 5 hours
waiting
a nervous-looking dude who reminded
me
of Mexico by way of Frederick Church
volcanoes
a woman in a nice wheelchair
with distended legs and two extremely
bright tweens
a pacing man—a doctor
with a yarmulke eyed suspiciously
by a man in the crowd
with a very strong beard.
Crying babies, trying to attain
a candy after five hours in line.
A guy who loses it and the police
who come and say Calm down.
They’re short staffed, surely you understand.
Two girls with strong faces
laughing at the bingo game the
government plays
A5 at desk 25, S17 at desk 3, B93 at
desk 16, F251.
Would a manager please come to the front?
I was thirty spots behind escaping
with a license to prove I still
wasn’t
a rabid El Salvadorean drug-cartel
killer.
This is life. I’m done. I’m done. My teller said.
We’re not short staffed. We just need copies of everything.
It was to prove if I was real. If we
all were real.
Had we been certified? What does that
mean?
Are we outsiders? Where is your home?
Endless division. I’m done. I’m done.
She was going home to have a Heineken
OR SOMETHING I said. And she laughed.
My photo looked like I was on meth.
Yes, I feel the same way too.
I wrote to my friend at hour 3 and
C81.
I repeated something new.
No boundary could contain it.
It was language spoken a trillion
times before.
The way of the world in a drop of
rain.
The MVA taught me what copyrights
could not.
No single voice is ever as important
as it thinks it is.
We are all in line for something now.
