Songs from Trump's MVA

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.