IMMIGRANT SONG

I handed my passport to the immigration officer, and he looked at it and looked at me and said, "What are you?"

Grace Hopper

Painting by Michael Parkes

She is just a foreigner

with a surname difficult to spell,

an exotic woman exiled in a dream.

It's better for everybody

to keep her inside a shell.

I've told you to keep away from her.

Her accent will always set her apart:

Is her language relevant anyway?

It seems to me she is pretty smart.

She is just a foreigner,

a bull in a china shop, an outsider:

she simply doesn't fit.

I can't understand her weirdness

or the grave errors she does commit.

Where did she say she is from?

Let's only be nice and that's all

What the hell is she doing here?

Don't you think she's got a bizarre shawl?

Immigrants, They are all the same.

She's more one: odd and disconnected.

Can't even pronounce her name.

She looks a bit dejected.

Sometimes I think she feels isolated too.

But she will never score high on my list.

Can't waste my time with her.

Why do immigrants have to exist?

Karla Bardanza

Copyright©Karla Bardanza 2011