Green Card :: Evidence of Adequate Means of Financial Support

I needed money. There's no poetic way to say this.

Even so, when you touched my face, brought my

cheeks to the nook of your neck, I burrowed into it-

a firefly seeking shelter from winter, far

underground. Then,

you told me there's no application form that can hold

the entirety of a life, because our days constantly spill like wine.

Imagine that

, you said,

apricot tones all over the page!

you told me about your ferns, bejeweled with jade dew,

their coiled fiddleheads full of unfulfilled,

twirling futures, and I forgot about my fixation with earning

people's respect, among other things for which

I'd been told it was proper to plead

until granted.

you told me, if immigrants could enrich a country,

you didn't want to know

our melting point and whether we would shine

brighter than gold.

you told me how I could stop confusing

belonging

with

belongings

,

good

with

goods

, by sharing

the way our hearts continue to beat

resilient, even without an assurance of worth.

you told me there can be solace in a dead end, in knowing the sea

still collapses, still runs and soars carrying its broken

shells, somewhere out there. And then,

you buried a kiss in the dark

earth of my hair. I believed it all.

What else could I do?