To understand exile, you don’t have to look
further than the family down the street
who lost their home and all they owned,
including their pets, in a fire, or a foreclosure,
or the mass of people reaching their arms out
to rescuers who pull them out of the water
in the sudden hurricane that sweeps the coast
where you live, or the birds that drop dead
at your feet and you smell the smoke
of wild fire blazing through a forest up North.
You don’t have to look far to understand exile
and homelessness. True, you still have a state
you claim as yours. But the sensation of being
in a vacuum, a dead zone, arises when your name
etched on an identity card or online records
cannot verify your existence, yes, that too
is the reality of anyone who swears by a country,
not to mention if your palms are charred
and your face alters with hurt.

PRAMILA VENKATESWARAN. poet laureate of Suffolk County, Long Island (2013-15) and co-director of Matwaala: South Asian Diaspora Poetry Festival, is the author of many poetry volumes, the most recent being We Are Not a Museum (Finishing Line Press, 2022), winner of New York Book Festival award.