Nocturnal Tripping

–Raza Ali Hasan

My itinerary is the eternity of exile.

Deferred is the trip back into domicile.

My marching orders lost at sea;

my papers shrouded in an immigrant’s secrecy.

Lamar Avenue in Austin, Texas is wide, long and it flows.

Air-conditioned apartments allow for repose.

My transports and attachments to the past,

my dream-life, have an urgency that is never lost.

An exile’s ultimate treat, tonight’s dreamlike score:

a dinner with the Zaidis in their Islamabad home.