Returning To America

Now... The pat-down at O’Hare is intrusive. I don’t look at the probing hands or the dead bored eyes. Schools of out of depth aliens, are funneled through small holes in an invisible net. Then... The Ellis Island cop is also bored. He speaks ponderously, as if the boy had no more wit than a fish. Now... I carry a man-bag over my shoulder, it holds my documents. The customs officer talks to me in a sign language made audible through pursed lips. Then... Sean looks up from his low-brow cap. He dares not speak least his tongue reveal a patois of Connemara peat. A crumpled birth certificate is produced and stamped. Now... He studies my papers, thrusts them back without a glance. Then... Sean keeps moving; waiting to be pulled back, not knowing that the future will pull him back anyway. Now... Outside the terminus, Americans depart in checkered cabs for Atlantis, and other undocumented places. ~~~